Tag Archives: agency

Potential drug target to nip cancer in the bud

The research was conducted by Dr Dmitry Bulavin and his team at A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), with their findings published in the 14 October 2013 issue of the scientific journal, Cancer Cell. The team discovered that Wip1 phosphatase is a key factor that causes point mutations to sprout in human cancers. These types of mutations stem from errors that are made during DNA replication in the body, causing one base-pair in the DNA sequence to be altered. These mutations can cause cancers to take root, or to become resilient to treatment. …

Scientists call for action to tackle cervical cancer in Kenya

Results from the research, which looked retrospectively at the treatment of women diagnosed with cervical cancer during a two year period, showed 18% of cervical cancer patients in the East African country died within two years of a diagnosis. Dr Ian Hampson, from The University of Manchester’s Institute of Cancer Sciences who oversaw the research, said the findings, published in PLOS One this week, add further weight to the call to spend more on cancer screening and prevention in Kenya…

Heavy cell phone use linked to cancer risk, new study suggests

To further explore the relationship between cancer rates and cell phone use, Dr. Yaniv Hamzany of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Department at the Rabin Medical Center, looked for clues in the saliva of cell phone users. Since the cell phone is placed close to the salivary gland when in use, he and his fellow researchers, including departmental colleagues Profs. Raphael Feinmesser, Thomas Shpitzer and Dr. …

HPV’s link to esophageal cancer

In addition to causing cervical, anal and genital cancers, HPV has more recently been found to cause some head and neck cancers. "One of the main issues is this form of esophageal cancer is usually diagnosed quite late and so has a very high mortality," says the first author of the paper, Dr Surabhi Liyanage, a PhD candidate with the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine…

Ground-breaking new method of ‘starving’ cancer cells

Chris Proud, Professor of Cellular Regulation in Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton says: "Cancer cells grow and divide much more rapidly than normal cells, meaning they have a much higher demand for and are often starved of, nutrients and oxygen. We have discovered that a cellular component, eEF2K, plays a critical role in allowing cancer cells to survive nutrient starvation, whilst normal, healthy cells do not usually require eEF2K in order to survive. Therefore, by blocking the function of eEF2K, we should be able to kill cancer cells, without harming normal, healthy cells in the process." Almost all cells in the human body contain the same basic components, meaning that to attack one of them in a cancer cell, that component will also be affected in normal cells…