The effort is known as the Institutional Multidisciplinary Paradigm to Accelerate Collaboration and Translation (IMPACT). The aim — as illustrated in the acronym — is to enhance the way cancer discoveries are translated from the laboratory bench to patient bedside and back again. …
One protein with the even more out-there name of ZEB1 (zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1), is now thought to keep breast cancer cells from being successfully treated with radiation therapy, according to a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Li Ma, Ph.D., an assistant professor of experimental radiation oncology at MD Anderson, reported in this month’s issue of Nature Cell Biology that ZEB1 may actually be helping breast tumor cells repair DNA damage caused by radiation treatment by ramping up a first-line of defense known as DNA damage response pathway. …
The study, published online August 3 in the journal Nature Genetics, shows that high mortality rates among head and neck cancer patients tend to occur only when mutations in the tumor suppressor gene coincide with missing segments of genetic material on the cancer genome’s third chromosome. The link between the two had not been observed before because the mutations co-occur in about 70 percent of head and neck tumors and because full genetic fingerprints of large numbers of cancer tumors have become available only recently…
Cancer drugs can be modified to specifically target tumour sites to help personalize cancer treatment. And while it is relatively easy to determine if the drugs have been delivered to the correct location, it is more difficult to monitor their therapeutic success. Now, a team led by Bin Liu from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in Singapore, in collaboration with Ben Zhong Tang at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has developed an anticancer drug with an inbuilt mechanism that shows if it is working. Platinum-based drugs are effective against many cancers, killing cells by triggering cellular suicide, or apoptosis…
With a new technique, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have established a new strategy to help surgeons see the entire tumor in the patient, increasing the likelihood of a positive outcome. This approach relies on an injectable dye that accumulates in cancerous tissues much more so than normal tissues…
The results build upon earlier findings reported in November 2013, showing that EA can decrease the joint pain reported by roughly 50 percent of breast cancer patients taking AIs — the most-commonly prescribed medications to prevent disease recurrence among post-menopausal women with early-stage, hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Despite their efficacy, the joint pain associated with the use of AIs often leads to fatigue, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances for these patients, which researchers suggest may cause premature discontinuation of the drug. …
The team at Barts Cancer Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London, have found that a molecule, called focal adhesion kinase (FAK), signals the body to repair itself after chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which kill cancer cells by damaging DNA. When the researchers removed FAK from blood vessels that grew in melanoma or lung cancer models, both chemotherapy and radiation therapies were far more effective in killing the tumors. The researchers also studied samples taken from lymphoma patients. Those with low levels of FAK in their blood vessels were more likely to have complete remission following treatment. …
Adults who had cancer as children are known to be at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that increases the likelihood of developing heart disease and other health problems such as diabetes and stroke. People with the metabolic syndrome have some combination of factors including high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol and glucose levels, and increased body fat. …
An Anti-Cancer Agent in Nature? …
When researchers dialed up mutant Kras to spur pancreatic cancer growth in mice, and then shut it down, a group of recurrent tumors grew back independently of mutant Kras, reliant on a different oncogene. …