Tag Archives: agency

Two-color barcodes: Dynamic duo to fight crime, cancer

So-called lanthanide-doped upconversion materials are highly promising for applications against crime and cancer as they have adjustable morphologies and tunable output wavelengths — they can also be fabricated by inexpensive processes that are easily scaled up. To date, single-crystal nanocrystals made from these materials have been impractical as multicolor barcodes because their tiny size makes them too small to be observed using conventional optical microscopes. …

Adenocarcinoma: UK tops global league table for gullet cancer in men

Rates of SCC have remained fairly stable or have even fallen over the past few years, but those of adenocarcinoma have risen, particularly in high income countries. In 2012, esophageal cancer was the eighth most common cancer worldwide. The researchers used data from Cancer Incidence in Five Continents volume 10 to calculate age, sex, and country specific proportions of the two types of esophageal cancer. These figures were then applied to IARC global data on the number of new esophageal cancer cases in 2012 (GLOBOCAN 2012), and age-standardised rates calculated. …

New drug formulations to boost fight against respiratory illnesses, antibiotic-resistant superbugs

A team of five researchers and clinicians in Singapore led by Dr Desmond Heng, ICES, has developed a new combination of drugs to effectively combat bacteria in the lungs which lead to common respiratory system infections, or bacteria-linked pulmonary diseases such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis. An acute upper respiratory tract infection, which includes the common flu, was reported to be among the top four conditions diagnosed at polyclinics for eight consecutive years, from 2006 to 2013. Pneumonia on the other hand, was the second leading cause of death in 2012, contributing to 16.8 per cent of the total number of deaths from illnesses behind cancer…

Novel gene predicts both breast cancer relapse, response to chemotherapy

Despite advancements in cancer treatment, breast cancer remains the most common cancer among Singapore women. Thirty percent of early breast cancer patients in the world experience relapse due to metastasis, or the spread of cancer cells to other organs in the body. Some patients also do not respond well to chemotherapy…