The team, led by Associate Professor Low Boon Chuan from the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science and the Mechanobiology Institute at NUS, first published the research in the journal Oncogene. …
As explicated today in the journal Nature, methylation in fact enforces gene silencing, and it is levels of a newly identified form of RNA produced by individual genes that determines whether they are turned off by the addition of a methyl (CH3) group by the enzyme DNA methylase 1 (DNMT1). The study, led by HSCI Principal Faculty member Daniel Tenen, MD, found that during transcription of DNA to RNA, a gene produces a small amount of what the investigators named "extracoding RNA," which stays in the nucleus and binds to DNMT1, blocking its ability to methylate, or silence the gene. The discovery of RNA’s new function has therapeutic potential as an on-off switch for gene expression. "We have demonstrated, at least for one gene in detail, and probably thousands more, that extracoding RNA serves to protect the gene from methylation," said Tenen, who heads laboratories at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, where he is director, at the National University of Singapore. …
The effort is the fruit of a new model of translational research being pursued at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University that integrates the latest cancer research with bioinspired technology development. It was led by Wyss Core Faculty member David J. Mooney, Ph.D., who is also the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Wyss Institute Associate Faculty member Glenn Dranoff, M.D., who is co-leader of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Cancer Vaccine Center. …
To further explore the relationship between cancer rates and cell phone use, Dr. …
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. …
HPV has been linked to anal, penile and certain types of throat cancers in men. Since the virus is also responsible for various cancers in women, vaccinating boys will play a crucial role in reducing cancer rates across the sexes. "HPV is the single most common sexually transmitted infection," says Newman, Canada Research Chair in Health and Social Justice. …
Using the bacterium E. coli, researchers from the University’s Faculty of Engineering showed it was possible to vastly increase the efficiency of the cells producing specifically modified proteins, as well as improve its performance and stability. The modification is present in over two-thirds of human therapeutic drugs on the market and involves the addition of specific sugar groups to the protein backbone, a process termed glycosylation. Drugs based on proteins are increasingly important in modern medicine to tackle health problems including diabetes, cancer and arthritis. …
The researchers who participated in this international research are: Marta Cascante and Vitaly Selivanov, from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the Faculty of Biology of the UB and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB), affiliated to the campus of International excellence Barcelona Knowledge Campus (BKC) ; Liang Zheng and Eyal Gottlieb, from Beatson Institute for Cancer Research (Scotland), and Joanna Kaplon and Daniel S. Peeper, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, among other experts. Cellular senescence: a ‘brake’ to cell division Cellular senescence, formally described more than four decades ago by Paul Moorhead and Leonard Hayflick, is a tumour suppression mechanism which limits cell’s ability to proliferate. This process works as a ‘brake’ for tumour genesis and can be an answer to several factors (oncogene, oxidative stress, telomere alterations, etc.) Professor Marta Cascante, head of the Consolidated Research Group on Integrative Systems Biology, Metabolomics and Cancer of the UB honoured with the ICREA Academia Award 2010, explains that "as a response to an oncogene mutation, cell can activate its protection mechanisms and get into a phase so-called ‘oncogene-induced senescence’ which acts as a key tumour suppressive mechanism. …