Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

Non-toxic strategy to treat leukemia proposed by researchers

Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine and the Harvard University Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology led the work, published in the journal Cell, in collaboration with researchers at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s been known for decades that cancer cells use energy differently than most cell types,” said senior author David Scadden, MD. “So we thought, maybe there are metabolism differences between blood stem cells and their immediate descendants; and are they so different from cancer that you might able to manipulate energy sources with something that could have an effect on cancer and not harm normal cells?” Scadden’s team began by examining blood stem cells and their direct offspring — blood progenitor cells that have a more limited ability to differentiate. The researchers modified the way the cells take up nutrients in two ways: via a glucose (sugar) on-off switch, and through subtle adjustments that raise or lower glucose, like a volume dial. …

Liposome research meets nanotechnology to improve cancer treatment

While radiotherapy can precisely target just the tumor site, systemic chemotherapy spreads a wide net, sending drugs speeding throughout the entire body in an attempt to kill cancer cells while also killing many healthy cells. Neither of these methods is highly effective when applied alone, therefore separated sessions of chemo and radiotherapy are required when fighting against solid tumors. Reports have shown that ideally, both methods would be employed at the same time…

Simple method turns human skin cells into immune strengthening white blood cells

The work, as detailed in the journal Stem Cells, shows that only a bit of creative manipulation is needed to turn skin cells into human white blood cells. “The process is quick and safe in mice,” says senior author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, holder of Salk’s Roger Guillemin Chair. “It circumvents long-standing obstacles that have plagued the reprogramming of human cells for therapeutic and regenerative purposes.” Those problems includes the long time — at least two months — and tedious laboratory work it takes to produce, characterize and differentiate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, a method commonly used to grow new types of cells. …

Gobbling up poison: Method for killing colon cancer

Now researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have discovered the unique biological properties inherent to colon cancer that make it a perfect candidate for immunotoxins — an antibody that won’t attach to normal cells and a toxin-delivery system that takes advantage of a fluke of biology: Colon cancer cells will gobble up poison if it’s attached to a key receptor on the cell’s surface. Indeed, the researchers demonstrated that the novel immunotoxin they created could reduce the lung metastasis in mice, which had grown out from colon cancers, by more than 80 percent with only 6 doses, in research published September 8th, 2014 in the journal Oncotarget. “These studies pave the way for effective antibody-directed therapy for metastatic disease in colorectal cancer, which currently carries a greater than 90 percent chance of mortality” says Scott Waldman, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and the Samuel MV Hamilton Professor at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr…

First clinical trial on HER-2-negative breast cancer with nintedanib shows promising results — ScienceDaily

According to Miguel Ángel Quintela, head of the Unit: “The drug combination of paclitaxel and nintedanib has turned out to be a complete success, given that it is proved to be safe and that the pathologic complete response [rate of complete recovery] was 50%, which doubles the response compared to patients treated with standard therapy with paclitaxel.” The trial has also included 10 HER-2-negative breast cancer patients, all of them in early stages of the disease. In light of the results, the CNIO Breast Cancer Clinical Research Unit has already launched a large-scale Phase II Clinical Trial to validate the results in a large group of patients. These results, including biomarker studies that will facilitate advances in personalised medicine, will be released by early 2015…