Tag Archives: colorado-cancer

One-two punch of drugs better than either alone against colorectal cancer

Of course, researchers have extensively targeted these two signaling pathways, designing drugs that turn on or off genes in these pathways, thus interrupting the transmission of cancer-causing signals. Unfortunately, these pathways have proven difficult to drug and also it has been difficult to show the effectiveness of drugs that successfully interrupt the transmission of signals along these pathways. A study by the University of Colorado Cancer Center published in the journal PLoS ONE and concurrent phase I clinical trial is examining a new strategy: targeting both these important cancer-causing pathways simultaneously. “Well, these two pathways are mutated frequently in cancer. …

From HIV to cancer, IL-37 regulates immune system

“Knowing this mechanism that underlies IL-37’s effect on the immune system now allows us to study IL-37 function and perhaps dysfunction in a wide range of diseases,” says Mayumi Fujita, MD, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, associate professor in the CU School of Medicine Department of Dermatology, and the paper’s senior author. For example, knowing that IL-37 helps to create overall immune system sensitivity could allow researchers to manipulate IL-37 levels to sensitize the immune system to recognize and target tumor tissue, or desensitize the immune system in auto-immune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis in which the immune system acts over-aggressively toward healthy tissue. …

Decades of research: Effectiveness of phone counseling for cancer patients still unknown

“The answer is that we really don’t know yet,” says Sonia Okuyama, MD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and the paper’s first author. The small sample sizes of most studies, focus on non-Hispanic white patients (predominantly in breast cancer), varied design of the phone interventions offered, and lack of consistency in adhering to reporting guidelines means that despite a high number of published studies, few definitive findings are possible…

New knowledge of genes driving bladder cancer points to targeted treatments — ScienceDaily

Specifically, the study examined a mutation-rich layer of the genome called the exome of 54 bladder tumors from primarily Caucasian patients. The study is the first to show alterations in the gene BAP1 in 15 percent of tumors; the gene is a likely tumor suppressor and so bladder cancers with alterations in this gene may be without an important check on the growth and survival of bladder cancer tissue…