Tag Archives: cancer

An ‘ambulance’ for the brain

“It is estimated that 20% of humans at some time will need a treatment that targets the brain,” explains Meritxell Teixid�, associate researcher at IRB Barcelona and leader of this line of investigation, “and for many diseases there are some good candidate drugs but none have the capacity to reach their target and thus there is a subsequent loss of potential. Our shuttle offers a solution to an urgent clinical need.” The work has been carried out in IRB Barcelona’s Peptides and Proteins Lab. Directed by Ernest Giralt, also senior professor of the UB, this lab is one of the few leading labs worldwide devoted to these kinds of developments…

Human stem cells repair damage caused by radiation therapy for brain cancer in rats

During radiation therapy for brain cancer, progenitor cells that later mature to produce the protective myelin coating around neurons are lost or significantly depleted, and there is no treatment available to restore them. These myelinating cells–called oligodendrocytes–are critical for shielding and repairing the brain’s neurons throughout life. …

Spontaneous cure of rare immune disease

As an adult, the patient contacted NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to evaluate herself and two of her children, who eventually were diagnosed with WHIM syndrome. The patient reported that her symptoms resolved in her 30s, indicating that she had maintained disease remission for nearly 20 years. In their study, NIAID researchers identify chromothripsis, the abrupt fragmentation of a chromosome, as the reason for the cure. …

New potential therapeutic strategy against a very aggressive infant bone cancer

Ewing’s Sarcoma Ewing’s sarcoma is the second most common bone cancer and affects children and adolescents. Currently, if diagnosed in time and there is no metastasis, it can be cured in 80% of cases but between 25% and 30% of cases are diagnosed when there is already metastasized, at which low survival to 30 %. The study published in Cancer Research demonstrates that overexpression of the protein sirtuin 1 very significantly correlated with metastasis in patient samples Ewing Sarcoma. …

Parkinson’s gene linked to lung cancer

The findings are published in American Journal of Human Genetics. Through whole exome sequencing, researchers identified a link between a mutation in PARK2, a gene associated with early-onset Parkinson’s disease, and familial lung cancer. The researchers sequenced the exomes (protein coding region of the genome) of individuals from a family with multiple cases of lung cancer. They then studied the PARK2 gene in additional families affected by lung cancer…

New minimally invasive test identifies patients for Barrett’s esophagus screening

To evaluate the safety, acceptability, and accuracy of the minimally invasive test compared with endoscopy for the diagnosis of Barrett’s esophagus, the researchers enrolled 1110 individuals attending 11 UK hospitals for investigational endoscopy of dyspepsia and reflux symptoms. They found that the new test correctly identified 79.9% of the 647 individuals with endoscopically diagnosed Barrett’s esophagus, and that 92.4% of 463 individuals unaffected by Barrett’s esophagus were correctly identified as being unaffected. The sensitivity of the test increased to 87.2% for patients with circumferential Barrett’s segments more than 3 cm, which are known to confer a higher cancer risk. Nearly 94% of the participants swallowed the sampling device (Cytosponge) successfully, there were no adverse effects attributed to the device, and participants who swallowed the device generally rated the experience as acceptable…

Hot on the trail of hepatitis-liver cancer connection

For the study, which was published in Nature Communications, the group performed whole genomic sequencing on 30 individual tumors classified as liver cancer displaying a biliary phenotype. This type of cancer originates in the liver, but is different from hepatocellular carcinoma, the dominant form of primary liver cancer, and is generally more aggressive, with poorer prognosis. …

Scientists home in on reasons behind cancer drug trial disappointment

Numerous angiopoietin-blocking therapies, which work to starve the tumour of its blood supply, are currently in clinical trials for ovarian cancer and other cancers. But despite promising earlier results, some of these therapies are not improving patient survival as much as was expected…