Tag Archives: engineering

New breast cancer test links immune ‘hotspots’ to better survival

Researchers used statistical software previously used in criminology studies of crime hotspots to track the extent to which the immune system was homing in and attacking breast cancer cells. The test, described in the journal Modern Pathology, could assess whether a woman’s immune system is holding a cancer at bay — and pick out those who will need intensive treatment to combat their more aggressive disease. Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, analysed tumour samples from 245 women with a type of breast cancer called oestrogen receptor negative (ER negative), which is particularly hard to treat. …

3-D vaccine spontaneously assembles to pack a powerful punch against cancer, infectious diseases

“This vaccine is a wonderful example of applying biomaterials to new questions and issues in medicine,” says David Mooney, Ph.D., a professor of bioengineering at Harvard University in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, whose lab developed the vaccine. The project was co-led by Jaeyun Kim, Ph.D. and Aileen Li, a doctoral student in the Mooney lab. Their findings were published in the December 8, 2014 issue of Nature Biotechnology. …

New way to use electric fields to deliver cancer treatment

Called iontophoresis, the technique delivers high concentrations of chemotherapy to select areas, reducing the risk of damaging healthy tissue, according to a study this week in Science Translational Medicine. “A big challenge with many drugs is getting them where they need to go,” said Lissett Bickford, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, “This technology basically forces drugs directly to and through the tumor, allowing all cancer cells in the treatment zone to get that exposure.” Bickford, who now directs the Medical Devices and Drug Delivery Lab at the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech, participated in the study during her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked with lead author Joseph DeSimone, the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry. Chemotherapy kills cancer cells, but it’s toxic to healthy cells, too. When it’s injected into the bloodstream, only a small amount of the drug actually gets to the tumor. …

This Endoscope Zaps Tumors

It may soon serve another purpose: zapping tumors. The biomedical advancement, which is under development at the University at Buffalo, could make chemotherapy more efficient, reduce its side effects and improve how doctors treat some of the most deadly forms of cancer. “We are developing a novel endoscopic device that will improve our ability to detect and destroy cancer cells,” says Ulas Sunar, PhD, a research assistant professor in UB’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health grant that supports the research. Conventional endoscopic imaging has limitations. …

Diagnostic screening: Microwave imaging of the breast may be better and safer

A better, cheaper, and safer way to look for the telltale signs of breast cancer may be with microwaves, said Neil Epstein, a NSERC CREATE I3T postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary in Canada. Epstein and his colleagues–engineering professor Paul Meaney of Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering and Keith Paulsen, director of the Dartmouth Advanced Imaging Center and the Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Radiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College — describe just such a microwave imaging system in the current issue of the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, from AIP Publishing…

Diagnostic screening: Microwave imaging of the breast may be better and safer — ScienceDaily

A better, cheaper, and safer way to look for the telltale signs of breast cancer may be with microwaves, said Neil Epstein, a NSERC CREATE I3T postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary in Canada. Epstein and his colleagues–engineering professor Paul Meaney of Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering and Keith Paulsen, director of the Dartmouth Advanced Imaging Center and the Robert A. …

Dscovery may help breast cancer treatment — ScienceDaily

Triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs) have a high mortality rate owing to aggressive proliferation and metastasis and a lack of effective therapeutic options. However, Professor Auguste’s team, discovered the overexpression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in human TNBC cell lines and tissues, and demonstrated that it is a potential molecular target and biomarker for TNBC therapy and diagnosis. “No therapies are available to treat triple negative breast cancer cells and because of that patients have a poor prognosis,” said Professor Auguste, the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The Identification of ICAM-1 as a TNBC target and biomarker may lead to the development of a new strategy and platform for addressing a critical gap in TNBC patient care, she added. …

Viewing cancer on the move: New device yields close-up look at metastasis

The inventors, from the university’s Whiting School of Engineering and its Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT), published details and images from their new system recently in the journal Cancer Research. Their article reported on successful tests that captured video of human breast cancer cells as they burrowed through reconstituted body tissue material and made their way into an artificial blood vessel. “There’s still so much we don’t know about exactly how tumor cells migrate through the body, partly because, even using our best imaging technology, we haven’t been able to see precisely how these individual cells move into blood vessels,” said Andrew D. …

New technique enables increasingly accurate PET scan to detect cancer, heart conditions

In the future, the newly developed technique will enable increasingly accurate image acquisition especially during PET scans performed to detect cancers of the chest and upper abdomen, and inflammatory diseases of the heart. PET scanning, or positron emission tomography, is a modern nuclear medicine imaging method, which allows for the detection of cancer and heart conditions. Thanks to enhanced image quality, PET images provide new and increasingly accurate data, potentially improving diagnosis reliability and treatment response monitoring. High-quality image data makes the treatment more efficient both medically and financially. …

New ‘designer proteins’ in fight against Alzheimer’s, cancer

The team has developed an innovative process allowing them to generate a particular type of synthetic amino acid — and a particular type of designer protein — that has not been done before. The advance is announced by the Jamieson Research Group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leicester…