The protein, MCL1, is currently the focus of widespread cancer drug development efforts. MCL1 is best known as an inhibitor of death via the cell’s suicide pathway in a process called apoptosis. The protein is elevated in a variety of cancers, and a number of MCL1 inhibitors are in the cancer drug development pipeline worldwide. The protein has also been linked to drug resistance in cancer patients. …
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/24/eternal-sunshine-bionic-mind-prosthesis-could-restore-memory/
The team comprised Professor James Goh, Associate Professor Toh Siew Lok and Dr Pamela Tan from the Department of Bioengineering at NUS Faculty of Engineering, and Associate Professor Saminathan Suresh Nathan from the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, who carried out their study using osteosarcoma, which is the most prevalent form of paediatric primary bone cancer. Reconstructing tumours in the laboratory has been a hot topic for research as current methods of testing have not been sufficient to yield concrete results. Dr Tan, who has been researching on the 3-D model for her PhD thesis, said: "Despite the urgent need to develop cancer therapeutics, little progress has been made due to the lack of good pre-clinical drug testing models. …
The findings could eventually lead to new cancer treatments in people, said study authors Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova. Their research paper will be published this week in the journal Nature. Naked mole rats are small, hairless, subterranean rodents that have never been known to get cancer, despite having a 30-year lifespan. …
A report on the federally funded research is published online June 11 in the journal PLOS ONE. TB brain infections often cause serious brain damage and death even when recognized and treated promptly, researchers say. This is so because many drugs currently used to treat resistant TB strains cannot cross the so-called brain-blood barrier, which stops pathogens from entering the brain, but also keeps most medicines woefully out of the brain’s reach…
Grapefruits have long been known for their health benefits, and the subtropical fruit may revolutionize how medical therapies like anti-cancer drugs are delivered to specific tumor cells. University of Louisville researchers have uncovered how to create nanoparticles using natural lipids derived from grapefruit, and have discovered how to use them as drug delivery vehicles. UofL scientists Huang-Ge Zhang, D.V.M., Ph.D., Qilong Wang, Ph.D., and their team today (May 21, 2013), published their findings in Nature Communications. …
By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled. One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming. This study in cells, led by Ohio State University researchers, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could stop breast cancer cells from inhibiting their own death. Much of what is known about the health benefits of nutrients is based on epidemiological studies that show strong positive relationships between eating specific foods and better health outcomes, especially reduced heart disease…
They say their study, published online May 10 in Human Molecular Genetics, offers a unique and exciting strategy to treat neurodegenerative diseases that feature abnormal buildup of proteins in Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia, Huntington disease and Lewy body dementia, among others. "This drug, in very low doses, turns on the garbage disposal machinery inside neurons to clear toxic proteins from the cell. By clearing intracellular proteins, the drug prevents their accumulation in pathological inclusions called Lewy bodies and/or tangles, and also prevents amyloid secretion into the extracellular space between neurons, so proteins do not form toxic clumps or plaques in the brain," says the study’s senior investigator, neuroscientist Charbel E-H Moussa, MB, PhD. Moussa heads the laboratory of dementia and Parkinsonism at Georgetown. …
"In our study, we used mice that were genetically engineered to develop an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Even so, half the animals that had consumed tomato and soy had no cancerous lesions in the prostate at study’s end. All mice in the control group — no soy, no tomato — developed the disease," said John Erdman, a U of I professor of food science and nutrition. From the time they were 4 to 18 weeks old, the animals were fed one of four diets: (1) 10 percent whole tomato powder; (2) 2 percent soy germ; (3) tomato powder plus soy germ; and (4) a control group that ate neither tomato nor soy. …