Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

New discovery approach accelerates identification of potential cancer treatments

They used the platform to identify a novel antibody that is undergoing further investigation as a potential treatment for breast, ovarian and other cancers. In research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in the lab of Stephen Weiss at the U-M Life Sciences Institute detail an approach that replicates the native environment of cancer cells and increases the likelihood that drugs effective against the growth of tumor cells in test tube models will also stop cancer from growing in humans. The researchers have used their method to identify an antibody that stops breast cancer tumor growth in animal models, and they are investigating the antibody as a potential treatment in humans. “Discovering new targets for cancer therapeutics is a long and tedious undertaking, and identifying and developing a potential drug to specifically hit that target without harming healthy cells is a daunting task,” Weiss said. …

Genetic test would help cut bowel cancer spread, research suggests

In a major study, Dr Ian Frayling from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine and researchers from the University of Exeter’s Medical School assessed the effectiveness of introducing a UK-wide screening program for a genetic condition known as Lynch Syndrome. Lynch syndrome is caused by changes in genes which check the spelling in DNA. The condition increases the risk of people developing cancer, particularly bowel cancer and cancers of the womb and ovaries later in life. …

Cancer therapy: Driving cancer cells to suicide

Researchers led by LMU’s Professor Angelika Vollmar and Professor Stephan Sieber of the Technische Universit�t M�nchen have identified a class of chemicals that represent a potential new weapon in the fight against malignant tumors. The compound is itself non-toxic, but it stimulates the killing of rapidly dividing cells by chemotherapeutic drugs. …

Disease decoded: Gene mutation may lead to development of new cancer drugs

Scientists at the University of Michigan and the U-M Health System recently discovered a protein mutation that causes the devastating disease dyskeratosis congenita, in which precious hematopoietic stem cells can’t regenerate and make new blood. People with DC age prematurely and are prone to cancer and bone marrow failure. But the study findings reach far beyond the roughly one in 1 million known DC patients, and could ultimately lead to developing new drugs that prevent cancer from spreading, said Jayakrishnan Nandakumar, assistant professor in the U-M Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. …

New discovery approach accelerates identification of potential cancer treatments — ScienceDaily

They used the platform to identify a novel antibody that is undergoing further investigation as a potential treatment for breast, ovarian and other cancers. In research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in the lab of Stephen Weiss at the U-M Life Sciences Institute detail an approach that replicates the native environment of cancer cells and increases the likelihood that drugs effective against the growth of tumor cells in test tube models will also stop cancer from growing in humans. The researchers have used their method to identify an antibody that stops breast cancer tumor growth in animal models, and they are investigating the antibody as a potential treatment in humans. …

New blood test determines whether you have or are likely to get cancer

“The test could allow earlier cancer detection, so helping to save peoples’ lives,” said Diana Anderson, a researcher involved in the work from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. To develop this test, Anderson and colleagues took blood samples from a group of people that included healthy individuals, cancer patients and people believed to be at a higher risk than normal to develop cancer…

Promising results shown with targeted approaches in subsets of non-small cell lung cancer

“Reports of lung cancers bearing mutations in BRAF have generated considerable interest because these mutations may be associated with increased sensitivity to BRAF tyrosine-kinase inhibiting agents,” says lead author Dr David Planchard, pulmonary oncologist at the Gustav-Roussy Cancer Campus, Paris, France. Planchard says studies suggest that activating BRAF mutations are present in around 2% of lung carcinomas — approximately 80% of which are V600E mutations. The BRAF V600E mutations are frequently associated with shorter disease-free, overall survival, and lower response rates to platinum-based chemotherapy. …

Mesothelioma: New Findings On Treatment Options

“Mesothelioma remains a difficult disease to find better treatment options for, so we asked whether high-dose hemithoracic radiotherapy would decrease the rate or delay the time of local recurrence after chemotherapy and radical surgery,” says lead author Prof Rolf A. Stahel, from the Clinic and Policlinic for Oncology, at the University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, and current President of the European Society for Medical Oncology. The multicentre trial included 153 patients with surgically-treatable malignant pleural mesothelioma, who were first treated with three chemotherapy cycles of cisplatin and pemetrexed, followed by surgical removal of affected lung tissue, with the goal of complete removal of the cancerous areas of lung. …