Tag Archives: louis

One in five women with ovarian cancer has inherited predisposition

Most women in the study would have been unaware of a genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer because they didn’t have strong family histories that suggested it. The research, published Jan. 22 in Nature Communications, is the first large-scale analysis of the combined contributions of inherited and acquired mutations in a major cancer type. …

New drug cuts risk of deadly transplant side effect in half

The study, the first to test this treatment in people, combined the drug vorinostat with standard medications given after transplant, resulting in 22 percent of patients developing graft-vs.-host disease compared to 42 percent of patients who typically develop this condition with standard medications alone. …

Bitter melon extract may have potential to fight head, neck cancer

Preliminary findings of the research were published in the Public Library of Science One Journal by Ratna Ray, Ph.D. associate professor of pathology at Saint Louis University. Ray found that bitter melon extract, a vegetable commonly used in Indian and Chinese diets, reduces the head and neck cancer cell growth in the animal model. "We wanted to see the effect of the bitter melon extract treatment on different types of cancer using different model systems," said Ray, who first tested the extract in breast and prostate cancer cells. …

Discovery goes from the lab to the patient

"This approval marks more than a decade of work with my fellow researchers and highlights the growing importance of genomic and genetic tests in the oncology clinic," said Perou. "This test is the result of data coming from modern, cutting-edge genomic technologies, and thus it is exciting to see the bench to bedside story fulfilled." A team of UNC researchers and collaborating researchers from three other institutions — Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Utah and the BC Cancer Agency — designed this test that categorizes breast tumors into one of four main subtypes by looking at the expression of 50 genes. The four types are luminal A, luminal B, HER2-enriched and basal-like. …

Major hurdle cleared to diabetes transplants

Efforts to make this treatment possible have been limited by a dearth of insulin-producing beta cells that can be removed from donors after death, and by the stubborn refusal of human beta cells to proliferate in the laboratory after harvesting. The new technique uses a cell conditioning solution originally developed to trigger reproduction of cells from the lining of the intestine. "Until now, there didn’t seem to be a way to reliably make the limited supply of human beta cells proliferate in the laboratory and remain functional," said Michael McDaniel, PhD, professor of pathology and immunology…