Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

3-D vaccine spontaneously assembles to pack a powerful punch against cancer, infectious diseases

“This vaccine is a wonderful example of applying biomaterials to new questions and issues in medicine,” says David Mooney, Ph.D., a professor of bioengineering at Harvard University in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, whose lab developed the vaccine. The project was co-led by Jaeyun Kim, Ph.D. and Aileen Li, a doctoral student in the Mooney lab. Their findings were published in the December 8, 2014 issue of Nature Biotechnology. …

Origins of colorectal cancer tumor cells traced

The scientists employed a “Big Bang” model of human colorectal cancer growth similar to the theory that the universe started from a single point and exploded outward. The team was led by Keck faculty researchers Darryl Shibata, M.D., professor of pathology, Keck School of Medicine of USC and Christina Curtis, Ph.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of medicine and genetics at Stanford University and adjunct assistant professor, department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC. “It’s like going back in time,” said Shibata. …

Cancer’s ability to ‘hijack’ regulatory mechanism increases metastasis

Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have found that one component of this human scaffolding called collagen “cross-links” can determine a tumor’s ability to grow and spread. These cross-links of protein complexes enable connective tissue cells known as “stroma” to stiffen, stimulating tumor cell invasion and metastasis. Study results were published in today’s online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation…

Could there be a gleevec for brain cancer?

A similar drug might be able to tame some brain cancers, new research from Columbia University Medical Center has shown. A team led by Antonio Iavarone, MD, professor of neurology and of pathology and cell biology, Institute for Cancer Genetics, previously discovered that a fusion of two proteins (present only in cancer cells and different from the two in CML) drives some cases of glioma, a common form of brain cancer. The team’s most recent study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, looked closely at two patients affected by recurrent glioblastoma with the fused proteins, in a first in-human trial of a drug that targets half of the fusion protein. Those patients, the researchers found, responded particularly well to the drug, with clinical improvement and radiological tumor reduction…

Epigenetic breakthrough: A first of its kind tool to study the histone code

This work, published in the journal Developmental Cell, opens the door to experiments that are expected to uncover new biology important for a host of conditions, such as neurological diseases, diabetes, obesity, and especially cancer, which has become a hotbed of epigenetic research. “People think cancer is a disease of uncontrolled proliferation, but that’s just one aspect of it,” said Robert Duronio, PhD, professor of biology and genetics and co-senior author. “Cancer is actually a disease of development in which the cells don’t maintain their proper functions; they don’t do what they’re supposed to be doing.” Somehow, the gene regulation responsible for proper cell development goes awry. …

Cancer researchers may inspire new area of research in cellular biology

A research collaboration between Griffith and the Malaghan Institute in Wellington, New Zealand has made the discovery that mitochondria are capable of passing through the healthy membrane of a host cell into defective tumour cells, possibly kicking off the rapid proliferation of tumour cells which is the hallmark of cancer. Until now each cell was believed to be a unique entity, with mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) bound within the cell membrane. …

Plant extract fights brain tumor

Scientists around G�nter Stalla, endocrinologist at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, now discovered in cell cultures, animal models and human tumour tissue that a harmless plant extract can be applied to treat Cushing Disease. “Silibinin is the major active constituent of milk thistle seeds. It has an outstanding safety profile in humans and is already used for the treatment of liver disease and poisoning,” explains Marcelo Paez-Pereda, leading scientist of the current study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine. After silibinin treatment, tumour cells resumed normal ACTH production, tumour growth slowed down and symptoms of Cushing Disease disappeared in mice…

New look at complex head and neck tumor behavior

An increasing number of head and neck cancers are caused by a virus, the human papilloma virus (HPV). Using tissue from HPV-positive and HPV-negative (largely linked to smoking) HNSCC tumors, researchers from institutions around the country referenced The Cancer Genome Atlas to develop a comprehensive assessment of alterations, or oncogenes, that could play a role in how the tumors develop and metastasize, said Wendell Yarbrough, M.D., section chief of otolaryngology at Yale School of Medicine and Clinical Program Leader of the Head & Neck Cancer Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. “To make the progress we envision with personalized medicine, we first have to understand what’s driving these tumors, and this is one of the first studies to do this,” said Yarbrough, an author on the study. …