Tag Archives: biology

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. …

Breast conserving therapy shows survival benefit compared to mastectomy in early-stage patients with hormone receptor positive disease — ScienceDaily

The study findings defy the conventional belief that the two treatment interventions offer equal survival, and show the need to revisit some standards of breast cancer practice in the modern era. The research was presented at the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium by Catherine Parker, MD, formerly a fellow at MD Anderson, now at the University of Alabama Birmingham. In the 1980s, both US-based and international randomized clinical studies found that BCT and mastectomy offered women with early stage breast cancer equal survival benefit…

Circulating tumor cell clusters more likely to cause metastasis than single cells

“While CTCs are considered to be precursors of metastasis, the significance of CTC clusters, which are readily detected using devices developed here at MGH, has remained elusive,” says Shyamala Maheswaran, PhD, of the MGH Cancer Center, co-senior author of the Cell paper. “Our findings that the presence of CTC clusters in the blood of cancer patients is associated with poor prognosis may identify a novel and potentially targetable step in the blood-borne spread of cancer.” In their experiments the team used two versions of a microfluidic device called the CTC-Chip — both developed at the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine — that captures CTCs from blood samples in ways that make the cells accessible for scientific testing. One version — the HBCTC-Chip — can efficiently capture extremely rare CTCs in a blood sample. …

Better classification to improve treatments for breast cancer

Cancer arises due to genetic changes which cause normal cells to develop into tumors. As we learn more about breast cancer, we are seeing that it is not one single disease — the mutations in the genes that cause different cancers are not alike, and this is why tumors respond differently to treatment and grow at different rates…

Promising new cancer therapy uses molecular ‘Trash Man’ to exploit a common cancer defense

Cancer therapies cause unwanted proteins to accumulate in cancer cells, which can trigger a form of cell suicide known as apoptosis. To survive, the cells break down the excess proteins through autophagy, from a Greek term meaning “self eating.” In a study recently published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology, scientists induced autophagy using the anti-tumor drug obatoclax while simultaneously blocking the production of p62 using a drug known as a cyclin-dependant kinase (CDK) inhibitor. …

RNA sequence could help doctors to tailor unique prostate cancer treatment programs

Colin Collins and Alexander Wyatt, and other researchers from the Vancouver Prostate Centre at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, matched 25 patients’ treatment outcomes with the RNA sequence of their prostate cancer tumors. They suggest that similarities between the RNA of some of the patients’ tumors could open up new avenues of treatment. Prostate cancer is the fourth most common cancer worldwide, but can be effectively managed. …