Tag Archives: illinois

Optimal particle size for anticancer nanomedicines discovered

“To develop next generation nanomedicines with superior anti-cancer attributes, we must understand the correlation between their physicochemical properties — specifically, particle size — and their interactions with biological systems,” explains Jianjun Cheng, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In a recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cheng and his collaborators systematically evaluated the size-dependent biological profiles of three monodisperse drug-silica nanoconjugates at 20, 50 and 200 nm…

new role for estrogen in pathology of breast cancer discovered — ScienceDaily

The University of Illinois team reports its findings in the journal Oncogene. Estrogen pre-activates the unfolded-protein response (UPR), a pathway that normally protects cells from stress, the researchers report. The UPR spurs the production of molecular chaperones that prepare cells to divide and grow. Without chaperone proteins to do the work of folding and packaging other proteins, cells — including cancer cells — cannot divide. …

Sorting cells with sound waves

Separating cells with sound offers a gentler alternative to existing cell-sorting technologies, which require tagging the cells with chemicals or exposing them to stronger mechanical forces that may damage them. “Acoustic pressure is very mild and much smaller in terms of forces and disturbance to the cell. …

Cell mechanics may hold key to how cancer spreads, recurs

Some particularly enterprising cancer cells can cause a cancer to spread to other organs, called metastasis, or evade treatment to resurface after a patient is thought to be in remission. The Illinois team, along with colleagues in China, found that these so-called tumor-repopulating cells may lurk quietly in stiffer cellular environments, but thrive in a softer space. The results appear in the journal Nature Communications…

BPA increases risk of cancer in human prostate tissue, study shows

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is widely used to soften plastics. Steering clear of the chemical is nearly impossible, says Gail Prins, professor of physiology at UIC and lead author of the paper. "Previous studies have shown that people who avoided all contact with plastics or other BPA-containing objects for up to a month or more still had BPA in their urine, which means they must have come into contact with BPA in the last 24 to 48 hours, since it clears the body rather quickly," said Prins, who is director of the UIC andrology laboratory. "It’s very hard to avoid." Exposure of the fetus to BPA in utero is of particular concern, because the chemical, which mimics the hormone estrogen, has been linked to several kinds of cancer, including prostate cancer, in rodent models…