Tag Archives: major

Peru: Liver cancer like no other

Very young patients To make up for the lack of knowledge on liver cancer in Latin America, the researchers performed a statistical analysis of clinical cases of the disease in Peru, the country reputed to have the highest incidence on the continent. They sifted through the demographic characteristics, risk factors and causes for more than 1,500 patients from throughout the country, admitted between 1997 and 2010 at the Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplásicas (Inen ) in Lima. Their results were unexpected: 50% of the people affected do not at all match the profile of those at risk. They are young people with an average age of 25, some even children, who for the most part do not have the hepatitis B or C virus nor do they suffer from cirrhosis. …

Aggressive lymphoma: Low doses of approved drug switches on pathway that allows chemotherapy to kill cancer

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, who led the study published in Cancer Discovery, say their strategy has the potential to change the standard of care for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) — and possibly other kinds of tumors. The targeted drug they used, azacitidine, is designed to reawaken molecular mechanisms that typically trigger cell death but are switched off as cancer — including lymphoma — progresses. The research team discovered that pretreating aggressive lymphoma with azacitidine enables the death signal to turn back on when chemotherapy triggers it. In a proof-of-concept, Phase 3 study of 12 high-risk DLBCL patients led by Dr. …

‘Molecular flashlight’ illuminates brain tumors in mice

The researchers altered the amino acid sequence of a cystine knot peptide — or knottin — derived from the seeds of the squirting cucumber, a plant native to Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. Peptides are short chains of amino acids that are integral to cellular processes; knottin peptides are notable for their stability and resistance to breakdown. The team used their invention as a "molecular flashlight" to distinguish tumors from surrounding healthy tissue. After injecting their bioengineered knottin into the bloodstreams of mice with medulloblastomas, the researchers found that the peptide stuck tightly to the tumors and could be detected using a high-sensitivity digital camera. …

Cell maturity pathway is deleted or weak in glioblastoma multiforme

Stuck in what amounts to cellular adolescence, these precursor cells accumulate, contributing to the variability among glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells that make it so difficult to treat, said first author Jian Hu, Ph.D., instructor of Genomic Medicine. "This arrested development is driven by the GBM cells’ plasticity — their stem-cell-like ability to produce many types of cells — and the breakdown of the cellular maturation process known as terminal differentiation," said senior author and MD Anderson President Ronald DePinho, M.D…

Study shows MicroRNAs can trigger lymphomas

The six "microRNA" molecules were already known to be overproduced in lymphomas and in many other human cancers, but no one had demonstrated that they can be the prime cause of such cancers — until now. The new study also identified the major biological pathways through which these microRNAs ignite and maintain cancerous growth. "We were able to show how this microRNA cluster can be the main driver of cancer, and so we now can start to think about therapies to combat its effects," said TSRI Assistant Professor Changchun Xiao. Xiao was the senior investigator for the study, which appeared this week in an advance online version of the EMBO Journal, a publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization. …

Promising new direction for organ regeneration and tissue repair

Now a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center has identified an entirely new approach to enhance normal tissue growth, a finding that could have widespread therapeutic applications. Their findings were published on-line this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Tissue regeneration is a process that is not fully understood, but previous research has demonstrated that endothelial cells lining the insides of small blood vessels play a key role in tissue growth. …

Cell phones could increase cancer risk

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. …