Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

Personalized cellular therapy achieves complete remission in 90 percent of acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients studied

The new data, which builds on preliminary findings presented at the American Society of Hematology’s annual meeting in December 2013, include results from the first 25 children and young adults (ages 5 to 22) treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and first five adults (ages 26 to 60) treated at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Twenty-seven of the 30 patients in the studies achieved a complete remission after receiving an infusion of these engineered “hunter” cells, and 78 percent of the patients were alive six months after treatment. “The patients who participated in these trials had relapsed as many as four times, including 60 percent whose cancers came back even after stem cell transplants. Their cancers were so aggressive they had no treatment options left,” said the study’s senior author, Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, a professor of Pediatrics in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and director of Translational Research in the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia…

Prostate cancer’s penchant for copper may be a fatal flaw — ScienceDaily

Researchers at Duke Medicine have found a way to kill prostate cancer cells by delivering a trove of copper along with a drug that selectively destroys the diseased cells brimming with the mineral, leaving non-cancer cells healthy. The combination approach, which uses two drugs already commercially available for other uses, could soon be tested in clinical trials among patients with late-stage disease. “This proclivity for copper uptake is something we have known could be an Achilles’ heel in prostate cancer tumors as well as other cancers,” said Donald McDonnell, Ph.D., chairman of the Duke Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology and senior author of a study published Oct. …

New, precise way to turn genes on and off

The key to the advance is a new invention, called the SunTag, a series of molecular hooks for hanging multiple copies of biologically active molecules onto a single protein scaffold used to target genes or other molecules. Compared to molecules assembled without these hooks, those incorporating the SunTag can greatly amplify biological activity. …

Precise control over genes results from game-changing research

The key to the advance is a new invention, called the SunTag, a series of molecular hooks for hanging multiple copies of biologically active molecules onto a single protein scaffold used to target genes or other molecules. Compared to molecules assembled without these hooks, those incorporating the SunTag can greatly amplify biological activity. …

How metastases develop in the liver

But during development of metastases, the control function of this inhibitor appears not only to fail but to swing in the opposite direction and to actually promote the formation of metastases. Observations in numerous cancer patients have shown that high levels of the inhibitor TIMP-1 in the blood did not slow the spread of cancer. On the contrary, it actually hastened the progression of the disease…

Discovery of cellular snooze button advances cancer, biofuel research

The discovery that the protein CHT7 is a likely repressor of cellular quiescence, or resting state, is published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This cellular switch, which influences algae’s growth and oil production, also wields control of cellular growth — and tumor growth — in humans…

New treatment designed to save more eyes from cancer

Treatments for retinoblastoma have progressed dramatically in recent years, one being a procedure called ophthalmic artery infusion chemotherapy. A tiny catheter is inserted into an artery that provides blood flow (and chemotherapy) directly to the eye and tumor. Originally introduced in the late 1980s, direct ophthalmic artery infusion significantly increases treatment effectiveness while reducing side effects. Unfortunately, many children with retinoblastoma are not good candidates for conventional ophthalmic artery infusion — in particular younger, smaller patients with advanced disease, according to Todd Abruzzo, MD, director of Interventional Neuroradiology at Cincinnati Children’s. …

Cushing’s syndrome: Researchers characterize new tumor syndrome

The ARMC5 gene was discovered by independent workgroups studying benign tumors — so-called adrenal adenomas — in connection with Cushing’s syndrome. In this disease, the body produces too much of the hormone cortisol. Now, for the first time, a mutation of ARMC5 has been characterized as the cause behind the growth of meningeal tumors. …