Tag Archives: institute

Clinical tool classifies spots on lung scans of smokers

The findings are expected to have immediate clinical impact worldwide among health professionals who currently diagnose and treat individuals at risk for or who are diagnosed with lung cancer, and provide new evidence for developing and improving lung-cancer screening programs. A total of 12,029 lung cancer nodules observed on CTs of 2,961 current and former smokers were examined in the population-based study. The results, to be published in the Sept. 5th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), will have an immediate impact on clinical practice, says co-principal investigator Dr. …

Novel therapeutic cancer vaccine goes to human clinical trials

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. …

Balancing act: Cell senescence, aging related to epigenetic changes

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found that epigenetic factors play a role in senescence. Epigenetic factors act on the structures in which genes reside, called chromatin. They found that senescent cells appear to undergo changes in their chromatin and find similar changes in cells that are prematurely aging. Their observations take place deep within cells — inside the chromatin of a cell’s nucleus. …

Finasteride: Long-term survival of participants in prostate cancer prevention trial detailed

New findings reported in NEJM on August 15, 2013, based on follow-up of trial participants for up to 18 years, showed that survival of the men on finasteride was equivalent to men who did not take the drug and the reduction in risk of prostate cancer persists. Among nearly 19,000 eligible men who underwent randomization, prostate cancer was diagnosed in 10.5 percent of those in the finasteride group and 14.9 percent of those in the placebo group, a 30 percent reduction in risk…

Potent mechanism helps viruses shut down body’s defense system against infection

Published in the August issue of the journal Cell Host and Microbe, the findings describe a novel mechanism that this group of so-called "enveloped viruses" uses to disarm the host’s innate immune response. The mechanism the scientists uncovered is based on these viruses activating a class of molecules, known as TAM receptors, which are located on the outside of certain immune cells…

Cancer’s origins revealed: Genetic imprints and signatures left by DNA-damaging processes that lead to cancer identified

Each mutational process leaves a particular pattern of mutations, an imprint or signature, in the genomes of cancers it has caused. By studying 7,042 genomes of people with the most common forms of cancer, the team uncovered more than 20 signatures of processes that mutate DNA…

How bacteria found in mouth may cause colorectal cancer

"Fusobacteria may provide not only a new way to group or describe colon cancers but also, more importantly, a new perspective on how to target pathways to halt tumor growth and spread," says senior study author Wendy Garrett of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. …