Tag Archives: disease

Oxygen – key to most life – decelerates many cancer tumors when combined with radiation therapy

In research examining tissue oxygenation levels and predicting radiation response, UT Southwestern scientists led by Dr. Ralph Mason reported in the June 27 online issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine that countering hypoxic and aggressive tumors with an "oxygen challenge" — inhaling oxygen while monitoring tumor response — coincides with a greater delay in tumor growth in an irradiated animal model…

Explaining cancer to better prevent it

Understanding the disease at source Cancer is the abnormal and disordered production in the body of cells, known as "malignant." During evolution, living beings have put in place natural mechanisms to control this unwanted proliferation and prevent too frequent development of these tumours. Scientists at the Centre for ecological and evolutionary research (Creec) in Montpellier, are studying how natural selection has designed this resistance to cancer in various species. A yet unexplained paradox To understand how the body’s defences are used, scientists have examined a paradox, known as "Peto’s paradox," named after the biologist who discovered it in the 1970’s. The larger an animal, the more cells it has and the greater the risk of contracting a cancer. …

New plan of attack in cancer fight: Two-drug combination, under certain circumstances, can eliminate disease

As described in a paper recently published in eLife, Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and of biology and director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and co-author Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a "targeted therapy" — a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer’s ability to grow and spread — could effectively cure nearly all cancers. Though the research is not a cure for cancer, Nowak said it does offer hope to researchers and patients alike. "In some sense this is like the mathematics that allows us to calculate how to send a rocket to the moon, but it doesn’t tell you how to build a rocket that goes to the moon," Nowak said…

Researchers perform DNA computation in living cells

Logic gates are the means by which computers "compute," as sets of them are combined in different ways to enable computers to ultimately perform tasks like addition or subtraction. In DNA computing, these gates are created by combining different strands of DNA, rather than a series of transistors. However, thus far DNA computation events have typically taken place in a test tube, rather than in living cells. NC State chemist Alex Deiters and graduate student James Hemphill wanted to see if a DNA-based logic gate could detect the presence of specific microRNAs in human cells…

‘Scent device’ could help detect bladder cancer

There are currently no reliable biomarkers to screen patients for bladder cancer in the same way that there are for breast and cervical cancers. Previous research has suggested that a particular odour in the urine could be detected by dogs trained to recognise the scent, indicating that methods of diagnoses could be based on the smell of certain gases. The team have now built a device, called ODOREADER ® that contains a sensor which responds to chemicals in gas emitted from urine…

Cancer is a result of a default cellular ‘safe mode,’ physicist proposes

In this month’s special issue of Physics World devoted to the "physics of cancer," Paul Davies, principal investigator at Arizona State University’s Center for Convergence of Physical Sciences and Cancer Biology, explains his radical new theory. Davies was brought in to lead the centre in 2009 having almost no experience in cancer research whatsoever. …