Tag Archives: disease

Can thermodynamics help us better understand human cancers?

In a new study, UCLA researchers analyzed the gene-expression profiles of more than 2,000 patients and were able to identify cancer-specific gene signatures for breast, lung, prostate and ovarian cancers. The study applied an innovative approach to gene-array analysis known as "surprisal analysis," which uses the principles of thermodynamics — the study of the relationship between different forms of energy — to understand cellular processes in cancer. …

Clinical trial tests new treatment for rare cancer

Now adrenal cancer researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are seeing the results of their laboratory studies translate to a clinical trial to test a potential new therapy in patients. Researchers Tom Kerppola, Ph.D., and Gary Hammer, M.D., Ph.D., collaborated to test a new compound, ATR-101, in cell lines and mice. …

Immune system discovery could lead to vaccine to prevent mono, some cancers

EBV causes infectious mononucleosis and cancers such as Hodgkin’s lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which is the most common cancer in China, as well as opportunistic cancers in people with weakened immune systems. A member of the herpes virus family that remains in the body for life, the virus infects epithelial cells in the throat and immune cells called B cells. The researchers discovered that the virus triggers molecular events that turn off key proteins, making infected cells invisible to the natural killer T (NKT) immune cells that seek and destroy EBV-infected cells. "If you can force these invisible proteins to be expressed, then you can render infected cells visible to NKT cells, and defeat the virus. …

Newly discovered gene regulator could precisely target sickle cell disease

The researchers — led by Daniel Bauer, MD, PhD, and Stuart Orkin, MD, of Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s — reported their findings today in Science. Prior work by Orkin and others has shown that when flipped off, BCL11A causes red blood cells to produce fetal hemoglobin that, in SCD patients, is unaffected by the sickle cell mutation and counteracts the deleterious effects of sickle hemoglobin. BCL11A is thus an attractive target for treating SCD. …

Cellular signals between pancreatic cancer tumors, saliva

The disease is typically diagnosed through an invasive and complicated biopsy. But a discovery by researchers at the UCLA School of Dentistry may be one major step toward creating a noninvasive tool that would enable clinicians and oncologists to detect pancreatic cancer through a simple risk assessment test using saliva. In a study on a tumor-ridden mouse model, the UCLA researchers were able to definitively validate that pancreatic cancer biomarkers reside in saliva…

Multivitamins with minerals may protect older women with invasive breast cancer

"Our study offers tentative but intriguing evidence that multivitamin/mineral supplements may help older women who develop invasive breast cancer survive their disease," said Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., lead author of the study and distinguished university professor emerita of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Multivitamin/mineral supplements are the most commonly consumed dietary supplements among U.S. adults. They usually contain 20-30 vitamins and minerals, often at levels of 100 percent of U.S…

Does good cholesterol increase breast cancer risk?

Now, a team of researchers led by Philippe Frank, Ph.D., a cancer biologist in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Thomas Jefferson University, has shown that an HDL receptor found on breast cancer cells may be responsible for this effect, proposing a new molecular target that could help treat the disease. …

Cancer survivors in rural areas forgo health care because of cost

Data analysis showed cancer survivors in rural areas who were aged 65 or older were 66 percent more likely to forgo medical care and 54 percent more likely to forgo dental care because of cost, compared with their urban counterparts. "This is the first population-based study to examine whether cancer survivors in rural and urban areas are equally likely to forgo health care as a result of concerns about cost," said Nynikka Palmer, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "We found a disparity among older survivors, for whom health insurance coverage through Medicare is almost universal, while no disparity was found for younger survivors after controlling for various factors. This suggests that health insurance coverage alone may not ensure equal access to health care…