Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

New genetic target for a different kind of cancer drug found — ScienceDaily

“Historically, scientists haven’t targeted the proteins in cancer cells that are involved in gene splicing,” said Zefeng Wang, PhD, associate professor in the department of pharmacology and senior author of the Cancer Cell paper. “This is a whole new ballgame in terms of gene regulation in cancer.” There are approximately 25,000 genes in the human genome — the same amount as in a fruit fly. But in humans, these genes are spliced together in different ways to create various kinds of messenger RNA to produce the many different proteins humans require. It’s like a filmmaker splicing together bits of movie scenes to create alternative cuts of a movie…

Common diabetes drug not linked to short-term risk of pancreatic cancer

“Our research shows that short-term use of DPP-4 inhibitors in older diabetes patients does not increase their risk for pancreatic cancer,” said John Buse, MD, PhD, director of the Diabetes Care Center at UNC and co-author of the paper in the current issue of the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism. “However, we just cannot address the long-term safety, yet. There are just not enough people who have taken the drug for many years.” DPP-4 inhibitors came on the market in 2006. Since then, these drugs have become some of the most commonly prescribed diabetes medications, primarily because they often cause fewer side effects compared to other diabetes treatments…

Dynamic duo takes out cellular trash: Research finds how dead cells are removed from body

Now, Salk scientists have discovered how two critical receptors on these garbage-eating cells identify and engulf dead cells in very different environments, as detailed in Nature Immunology. “To target these receptors as treatments for autoimmune disease and cancer, it’s important to know exactly which receptor is doing what. And this discovery tells us that,” says senior author of the work Greg Lemke, Salk professor of molecular neurobiology and the holder of Salk’s Fran�oise Gilot-Salk Chair. The garbage-disposing cells, known as macrophages, have arrays of receptors on their surface, two of which — called Mer and Axl — are responsible for recognizing dead cells in normal environments and inflamed environments, respectively…

Researchers discover key to making new muscles

There are two important processes that need to happen to maintain skeletal-muscle health. First, when muscle is damaged by injury or degenerative disease such as muscular dystrophy, muscle stem cells — or satellite cells — need to differentiate into mature muscle cells to repair injured muscles. Second, the pool of satellite cells needs to be replenished so there is a supply to repair muscle in case of future injuries. In the case of muscular dystrophy, the chronic cycles of muscle regeneration and degeneration that involve satellite-cell activation exhaust the muscle stem-cell pool to the point of no return. …

New antifungal as effective as existing drugs with fewer adverse events

“There is a growing need for new antifungal therapies like isavuconazole because serious fungal infections caused by Aspergillus and other molds are on the rise due to the increasing numbers of immunosuppressed patients, including those with active cancer. These infections are associated with high morbidity and mortality. If approved, isavuconazole has the potential to be an important new option for the treatment of these life-threatening fungal infections,” says Andrew Ullman of Julius Maximilians University in Wuerzburg, Germany, one of the researchers presenting data. Invasive fungal infections are important causes of morbidity and death for patients with hematological malignancies…

Ultraviolet light-induced mutation drives many skin cancers, researchers find

The mutation occurs in a gene called KNSTRN, which is involved in helping cells divide their DNA equally during cell division. Genes that cause cancer when mutated are known as oncogenes. Although KNSTRN hasn’t been previously implicated as a cause of human cancers, the research suggests it may be one of the most commonly mutated oncogenes in the world. “This previously unknown oncogene is activated by sunlight and drives the development of cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas,” said Paul Khavari, MD, PhD, the Carl J…

Breast cancer specialist reports advance in treatment of triple-negative breast cancer

“Impact of the Addition of Carboplatin and/or Bevacizumab to Neoadjuvant Once-Per-Week Paclitaxel Followed by Dose-Dense Doxorubicin and Cyclophosphamide on Pathologic Complete Response Rates in Stage II to III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: CALGB 40603 (Alliance)” was accepted as a rapid publication and published online this month by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. It will come out in print in September. Because of its rapid growth rate, many women with triple-negative breast cancer receive chemotherapy to try to shrink it before undergoing surgery. …

Soy supplementation adversely effects expression of breast cancer-related genes — ScienceDaily

The impact of soy consumption on breast cancer prevention and treatment is not clear although many women believe soy supplementation is beneficial based primarily on results from epidemiological studies. Moshe Shike, M.D., from the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY, and colleagues conducted a randomized placebo-controlled study of the effects of soy supplementation on gene expression and markers of breast cancer risk among women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. The study, run between 2003 and 2007 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, enrolled a total of 140 patients who were randomized to either soy supplementation (soy protein) or placebo (milk protein), which lasted from the initial surgical consultation to the day before surgery (range=7-30 days)…

No association found between wearing bra, breast cancer

“There have been some concerns that one of the reasons why breast cancer may be more common in developed countries compared with developing countries is differences in bra-wearing patterns,” said Lu Chen, MPH, a researcher in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health. …

Novel immunotherapy vaccine decreases recurrence in HER2 positive breast cancer patients

One of only a few vaccines of its kind in development, GP2 has been shown to be safe and effective for breast cancer patients, reducing recurrence rates by 57%. Further, women with the highest overexpression of HER2 (known as HER2 +3) had no cancer recurrences when they were administered the vaccine after completing trastuzumab (Herceptin), a type of immunotherapy drug known as a monoclonal antibody. HER2 is an oncoprotein that promotes tumor growth and is expressed to some extent in 75-80% of breast cancers. “This is an important and different avenue in immunotherapy research, in that we are investigating ways to prevent cancer recurrence by stimulating the immune system to treat cancer,” says principal investigator Elizabeth Mittendorf, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Surgical Oncology. …