Dr. Haibe-Kains’s article investigated results from two large-scale pharmacogenomic studies — the Cancer Genome Project (CGP) and the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) — published last year in Nature. …
"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…
The nanosponges at the foundation of the experimental "toxoid vaccine" platform are bio-compatible particles made of a polymer core wrapped in a red-blood-cell membrane. Each nanosponge’s red-blood-cell membrane seizes and detains the Staphylococcus aureus (staph) toxin alpha-haemolysin without compromising the toxin’s structural integrity through heating or chemical processing. These toxin-studded nanosponges served as vaccines capable of triggering neutralizing antibodies and fighting off otherwise lethal doses of the toxin in mice. Toxoid vaccines protect against a toxin or set of toxins, rather than the organism that produces the toxin(s)…
"In addition to its role in regulating the cell cycle, cyclin D1 induces Dicer and thereby promotes the maturation of miRNA," says lead researcher Richard Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University and Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology. Dicer is a protein that converts inactive hairpin-structured microRNA precursors into their active single stranded form. "The work supports the idea that cancer-causing proteins like cyclin D1 may drive cancer progression in part via miRNA biogenesis." Using antisense RNA, Dr. Pestell’s group was the first to show that cyclin D1 drives mammary tumor growth in vivo. …
With graduate student Maria Elena De Obaldia, Bhandoola describes in Nature Immunology this month how Notch signaling induces expression of genes that promote the maturation of T cells and discourage alternative cell fates. …
Now, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have identified and exploited a newfound "Achilles heel" in K-Ras. The weak point is a newly discovered "pocket," or binding site, identified by HHMI investigator Kevan M. Shokat and colleagues. Shokat and his team have designed a chemical compound that fits inside this pocket and inhibits the normal activity of mutant K-Ras, but leaves the normal protein untouched…
Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by Juan Méndez, head of the DNA Replication Group, together with Luis Blanco, from the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre (CBM-CSIC), have discovered how a new human enzyme, the protein PrimPol, is capable of recognising DNA lesions and facilitate their repair during the DNA copying process, thus avoiding irreversible and lethal damage to the cells and, therefore, to the organism. The results are published in the online edition of the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. …
Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Birmingham, who have been studying breast and prostate cancer cells, show how manipulating PRH’s levels in cancer cells can hinder their ability to penetrate into neighbouring environments, potentially preventing them from entering nearby blood vessels. The findings could lead to new ways of combating the spread of the disease in multiple cancers. PRH belongs to a group of proteins known as ‘transcription factors’, meaning its role is to interact with DNA to ‘switch’ particular genes ‘on’ or ‘off’. Scientists have been aware of PRHs’ role in controlling cell growth and specification for some time…
Dr. …
"Two recent phase III trials of another anti-angiogenic drug, bevacizumab, showed no improvement in overall survival for glioblastoma patients, but our study suggests that only a subset of such patients will really benefit from these drugs," explains Tracy Batchelor, MD, director of the Pappas Center for Neuro-Oncology at the MGH Cancer Center and co-lead and corresponding author of the current study. "Our results also verify that normalization of tumor vasculature appears to be the way that anti-angiogenic drugs enhance the activity of chemotherapy and radiation treatment." Anti-angiogenic drugs, which block the action of factors that stimulate the growth of blood vessels, were first introduced for cancer treatment under the theory that they would act by ‘starving’ tumors of their blood supply…