Dr. McNeill’s team has an international reputation for their work in understanding how cells become organized into tissues and how growth is regulated during development. The group focuses on mutations in the fat (ft) gene…
The study, published September 8 in the journal Developmental Cell, reveals that CXCR7 binds to the ligand adrenomedullin. The UNC research suggests that this relationship is important because CXCR7 has become a popular candidate for cancer-drug developers. The UNC paper also provides a novel and unexpected role for CXCR7 in lymphatic vessels, which are largely understudied, but play critical roles in inflammation, edema, and tumor metastasis. “Our results suggest that inhibiting CXCR7 with a drug is also likely to influence the adrenomedullin peptide and may unexpectedly and negatively affect lymphatic vessels,” said senior study author Kathleen M. …
The researchers, whose results were published today in Cell, successfully grew six prostate cancer organoids from biopsies of patients with metastatic prostate cancer and a seventh organoid from a patient’s circulating tumor cells. …
The researchers, whose results were published today in Cell, successfully grew six prostate cancer organoids from biopsies of patients with metastatic prostate cancer and a seventh organoid from a patient’s circulating tumor cells. Organoids are three-dimensional structures composed of cells that are grouped together and spatially organized like an organ. The histology, or tissue structure, of the prostate cancer organoids is highly similar to the metastasis sample from which they came. Sequencing of the metastasis samples and the matched organoids showed that each organoid is genetically identical to the patient’s cancer from which it originated. …
Scientists from the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute (CBDI) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report their results in a study posted online Sept. 4 by Cell Reports. The specific forms of AML and MDS in the current study involve deletions on the arm of a specific chromosome in blood cells (del(5q)…
The experimental approach, based on U-M research, delivers two different genes directly into the brains of patients following the operation to remove the bulk of their tumors. The idea: trigger immune activity within the brain itself to kill remaining tumor cells — the ones neurosurgeons can’t take out, which make this type of tumor so dangerous. …
“This free platform has a broad range of uses for all types of cell-based investigations and can potentially offer help to people working on all types of cancer,” says Hu Li, Ph.D., investigator in the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and Department of Molecular Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, and co-lead investigator in the two works. “CellNet will indicate how closely an engineered cell resembles the real counterpart and even suggests ways to adjust the engineering.” The network biology platform contains data on a wide range of cells and details on what is known about those cell types. Researchers say the platform can be applied to almost any study and allows users to refine the engineering process. In the long term, it should provide a reliable short cut to the early phases of drug development, individualized cancer therapies, and pharmacogenetics. …
According to the National Cancer Institute, more than a third of all human cancers are driven by mutations in the Ras family of genes. When Ras is activated, it promotes tumor growth but also activates autophagy which helps to sustain that growth. These cancers remodel proteins using the cellular self-cannibalization process known as autophagy to capture and degrade intracellular proteins and protein-containing organelles…
Dasatinib fights leukemia by checking the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. But when used against other cancer cells, researchers found, the drug employs a different strategy: It causes the cells to clump together, thus preventing them from migrating. Without the ability to migrate, cancer cells cannot metastasize (spread to other parts of the body)…
Dasatinib fights leukemia by checking the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. But when used against other cancer cells, researchers found, the drug employs a different strategy: It causes the cells to clump together, thus preventing them from migrating. …