Tag Archives: institute

Researchers turn to machines to identify breast cancer type

Since each cell in the body contains 23,000 genes, identifying the specific genes involved in cancer growth is an exceedingly complex task. Researchers used a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning to identify three genes that allowed them to determine whether a tumour was fed by estrogen. "People can’t possibly sort through all this information and find the important patterns," said senior author Russ Greiner, a professor in the Department of Computing Science and investigator with the Alberta Innovates Centre for Machine Learning. …

New means of growing intestinal stem cells

The small intestine, like most other body tissues, has a small store of immature adult stem cells that can differentiate into more mature, specialized cell types. Until now, there has been no good way to grow large numbers of these stem cells, because they only remain immature while in contact with a type of supportive cells called Paneth cells. In a new study appearing in the Dec. …

Colon cancer researchers target stem cells, discover viable new therapeutic path

"This is the first step toward clinically applying the principles of cancer stem cell biology to control cancer growth and advance the development of durable cures," says principal investigator Dr. John Dick about the findings published online today in Nature Medicine…

Untreated cancer pain a ‘scandal of global proportions,’ survey shows

The results from the Global Opioid Policy Initiative (GOPI) project show that more than 4 billion people live in countries where regulations leave cancer patients suffering excruciating pain. National governments must take urgent action to improve access to these medicines, says the European Society for Medical Oncology, leader of a group of 22 partners that have launched the first global survey to evaluate the availability and accessibility of opioids for cancer pain management. "The GOPI study has uncovered a pandemic of over-regulation in much of the developing world that is making it catastrophically difficult to provide basic medication to relieve strong cancer pain," says Nathan Cherny, Chair of the ESMO Palliative Care Working Group and lead author of the report, from Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. "Most of the world’s population lacks the necessary access to opioids for cancer pain management and palliative care, as well as acute, post-operative, obstetric and chronic pain." "When one considers that effective treatments are cheap and available, untreated cancer pain and its horrendous consequences for patients and their families is a scandal of global proportions," Cherny says…

Pills of the future: Nanoparticles; Researchers design drug-carrying nanoparticles that can be taken orally

Now, researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have developed a new type of nanoparticle that can be delivered orally and absorbed through the digestive tract, allowing patients to simply take a pill instead of receiving injections. In a paper appearing in the Nov. 27 online edition of Science Translational Medicine, the researchers used the particles to demonstrate oral delivery of insulin in mice, but they say the particles could be used to carry any kind of drug that can be encapsulated in a nanoparticle…

Leukemia cells exploit ‘enhancer’ DNA elements to cause lethal disease

The research, appearing today in Genes & Development and led by CSHL Assistant Professor Chris Vakoc, centers on the way a cancer-promoting gene is controlled. When this oncogene, called Myc, is robustly expressed, it instructs cells to manufacture proteins that contribute to the uncontrolled growth that is cancer’s hallmark. The Myc oncogene is also implicated in many other cancer types, adding to the significance of the new finding…