Tag Archives: development

Cell maturity pathway is deleted or weak in glioblastoma multiforme

Stuck in what amounts to cellular adolescence, these precursor cells accumulate, contributing to the variability among glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells that make it so difficult to treat, said first author Jian Hu, Ph.D., instructor of Genomic Medicine. "This arrested development is driven by the GBM cells’ plasticity — their stem-cell-like ability to produce many types of cells — and the breakdown of the cellular maturation process known as terminal differentiation," said senior author and MD Anderson President Ronald DePinho, M.D…

Way to fight therapy resistant leukemia by blocking DNA repair

Scientists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report that their experimental combination treatment strategy — using a small molecular inhibitor along with chemotherapy — was particularly effective at stopping a stubborn leukemia called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or T-ALL. …

Scientists discover a molecular ‘switch’ in cancers of the testis and ovary

Malignant germ cell tumours arise in sperm- or egg-forming cells and usually occur in the reproductive organs, the testes or ovaries. The cancerous tumours are seen in patients of all ages, both in childhood and adulthood. Although many patients do well after treatment, current chemotherapy treatments can have severe long-term side effects, including hearing loss and damage to the kidneys, lungs and bone marrow. For some patients, outcomes remain poor and testicular cancer continues to be a leading cause of death in young men…

New protein discovered with vast potential for treatment of cancer and other diseases

The identification of CPTP was the result of an international collaboration that built on prior research by co-lead author Charles Chalfant, Ph.D., Endowed Chair of Cancer Cell Signaling and member of the Cancer Cell Signaling program at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center as well as professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at VCU School of Medicine. The team discovered that CPTP regulates levels of biologically active lipids, which are molecules such as fatty acids that often play a role in cell signaling…

Could sleeping stem cells hold key to treatment of aggressive blood cancer?

The finding offers the potential that these stem cells could somehow be turned back on, offering a new form of treatment for the condition, called Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). The work was led by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London with the support of Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute…

Heavy cell phone use linked to cancer risk, new study suggests

To further explore the relationship between cancer rates and cell phone use, Dr. Yaniv Hamzany of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Department at the Rabin Medical Center, looked for clues in the saliva of cell phone users. Since the cell phone is placed close to the salivary gland when in use, he and his fellow researchers, including departmental colleagues Profs. Raphael Feinmesser, Thomas Shpitzer and Dr. …

Stem cell discovery furthers research on cell-based therapy and cancer

"Scientists have known that Bmi1 is a central control switch within the adult stem cells of many tissues, including the brain, blood, lung and mammary gland," said Ophir Klein, MD, PhD, who directs the Craniofacial and Mesenchymal Biology (CMB) Program and serves as chair of the Division of Craniofacial Anomalies at UCSF. "Bmi1 also is a cancer-causing gene that becomes reactivated in cancer cells." Klein’s research group now has shown that BMI1 plays another role in ensuring that the process of development unfolds normally. The hallmarks of all stem cells are that they are immature, they keep dividing to replenish their numbers almost indefinitely, and they generate new specialized cells to function in the tissues in which they reside, a process called cell differentiation. …

Ground-breaking new method of ‘starving’ cancer cells

Chris Proud, Professor of Cellular Regulation in Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton says: "Cancer cells grow and divide much more rapidly than normal cells, meaning they have a much higher demand for and are often starved of, nutrients and oxygen. We have discovered that a cellular component, eEF2K, plays a critical role in allowing cancer cells to survive nutrient starvation, whilst normal, healthy cells do not usually require eEF2K in order to survive. Therefore, by blocking the function of eEF2K, we should be able to kill cancer cells, without harming normal, healthy cells in the process." Almost all cells in the human body contain the same basic components, meaning that to attack one of them in a cancer cell, that component will also be affected in normal cells…