Based on analysis of two large breast cancer databases, reduced activity of an autophagy gene, beclin 1, was related to both a higher incidence of triple-negative breast cancer and a poorer prognosis for breast cancer patients. …
“All cancers are caused by a combination of bad luck, the environment and heredity, and we’ve created a model that may help quantify how much of these three factors contribute to cancer development,” says Bert Vogelstein, M.D., the Clayton Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “Cancer-free longevity in people exposed to cancer-causing agents, such as tobacco, is often attributed to their ‘good genes,’ but the truth is that most of them simply had good luck,” adds Vogelstein, who cautions that poor lifestyles can add to the bad luck factor in the development of cancer. The implications of their model range from altering public perception about cancer risk factors to the funding of cancer research, they say. “If two-thirds of cancer incidence across tissues is explained by random DNA mutations that occur when stem cells divide, then changing our lifestyle and habits will be a huge help in preventing certain cancers, but this may not be as effective for a variety of others,” says biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti, Ph.D., an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. …
But researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, found that endogenous retroviruses (ERV) also play a critical role in the body’s immune defense against common bacterial and viral pathogens. “Most scientists have become used to the view that retroviruses are generally harmful,” said Nobel Laureate Dr. …
The study – funded by Cancer Research UK, Action Medical Research and others – shows that taking an extra tumour sample at recurrence, when there are no effective therapies, could identify subsets of patients that might be treatable with existing drugs that target the genetic faults. …
Using a new super-resolution microscope they’ve been able to see single molecules of the enzyme at work in a liver cancer cell line. Then they’ve used confocal microscopes to see how disrupting the enzyme slows down living cancer cells. The enzyme is DPP9 (dipeptidyl peptidase 9) which the researchers at the Centenary Institute and the Sydney Medical School were first to discover and clone, in 1999. …
“This is the first time that biofilms have been shown to be associated with colon cancer, to our knowledge,” says co-author Jessica Mark Welch, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass. The discovery, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, draws on a novel way to “see” microbial community structure that was developed by Mark Welch and colleagues at the MBL. Called combinatorial imaging, it could potentially be used to clinically diagnose pre-cancerous and cancerous conditions in the ascending colon…
“What is most exciting is that we are now able to identify what senescent cells express that makes them beneficial,” said Campisi, senior scientist on the study. “This means we will be able to simply provide that factor while we eliminate senescent cells to prevent a deleterious side effect before it even occurs.” Postdoctoral fellow, Marco Demaria, PhD, lead author of the study, used two different mouse models: in the first, which was developed in collaboration with colleagues at the Erasmus, Harvard and Einstein Medical Schools, senescent cells can be visualized and eliminated in living animals; in the second, which was developed by Eiji Hara, Naoko Ohtani and colleagues at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, mutations in two key genes block the senescence program…
“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. for women for decades…
“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. for women for decades. …
There are concerns the vaccine, which guards against four types of the HPV shown to cause cervical cancer and anogenital warts, may give girls a false sense of security about contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and lead them to engage in riskier sexual activity. “These findings suggest fears of increased risky sexual behaviour following HPV vaccination are unwarranted and should not be a barrier to vaccinating at a young age,” says Dr. Smith, the lead author on the study that was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. This study looked at a cohort of 260,493 girls, of whom about half (128,712) were eligible for Ontario’s publicly funded, school-based HPV vaccination program during the first two school years it was offered (2007-08 and 2008-09). …