"Mammals display a huge range in size from the largest blue whale to the tiniest fruit bat," says Colby Zaph, assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Biomedical Research Centre, who co-authored the study published in Developmental Cell. …
In a joint effort with the National Institutes of Health, a group of researchers from the University of Copenhagen have taken a step closer to being able to design a more effective anticancer treatment by mapping a previously unknown molecular mechanism. The group has been working with proteases, important enzymes which are responsible for maintaining different types of tissues in the body while also being involved in many -diseases, including cancer. Cancer cells can exploit an over-production of proteases to force their way into the body so they can quickly grow and create a space for themselves in which to spread. "So far, we have been unable to treat cancer patients with drugs which can effectively stop cancer cells from spreading, but having now discovered that an important function of proteases has been overlooked, we have the possibility of designing new drugs…
Death and disease risk associated with excess body weight can vary among individuals with similar BMI. Ectopic fat, or fat located where it is not supposed to be, in this case being visible in the abdominal area, could be the cause of this difference in risk. It’s widely known that abdominal fat can be more dangerous than fat in other areas, but this study is the first to use CT scan to study specifically located fat depots for direct associations with disease risk…
The concept involves using nanoparticles made of "weak polybases," compounds that expand when transported into environments mimicking tumor cells, which have a higher acidity than surrounding tissues. …
Neuroblastomas are pediatric tumors that originate from cells of the embryonic nervous system. The disease can take widely varying clinical courses that range from spontaneous regression to fatal outcomes…
"We are the first to identify this entirely new way that cancer spreads," says senior author Dr. Lorenzo Ferri, MUHC director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and the Upper Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancer Program. "What’s equally exciting is medications already exist that are being used for other non-cancer diseases, which may prevent this mechanism of cancer spread or metastasis." According to Dr. …
Scientists used a powerful technique called protein crystallography to look at 3D structures of protein complexes purified from cultured human cells. They discovered that a family of complexes, that switch off gene expression, is regulated by small signalling molecules called inositol phosphates. This latest study shows that this mode of regulation is conserved from yeast right through to man and is a fundamental process for life…
The research may lead to the development of new drugs or delivery systems to treat cancer by blocking this receptor, known as natriuretic peptide receptor A (NPRA). The findings appeared online recently in the journal Stem Cells. "Our results show that NRPA signaling by cancer cells produces some molecular factors that attract stem cells, which in turn form blood vessels that provide oxygen and nutrients to the tumor," said the study’s principal investigator Subhra Mohapatra, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine…
To reduce the need for these second surgeries, four Johns Hopkins graduate students have designed a device to allow pathologists to quickly inspect excised breast tissue within 20 minutes, while the patient is still in the operating room. …
Researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation led by Miguel Beato have, in an article published in the journal Cell Reports, just revealed that one of these molecules (PLK1 kinase), up to now thought to be related to cancer, can also be crucial for the proper functioning of the cell. PLK1 had always been associated with breast cancer due to its role in cell division. …