The researchers have not progressed that far yet. Although they have spent the past 20 years developing individual components and prototypes of biological computers, bio-computers today still differ significantly from their counterparts made of silicon, and bio-engineers still face several major obstacles…
MIT researchers have now developed a new way to model the effects of these genetic mutations in mice. Their approach, based on the genome-editing technique known as CRISPR, is much faster than existing strategies, which require genetically engineering mice that carry the cancerous mutations. “It’s a very rapid and very adaptable approach to make models,” says Thales Papagiannakopoulos, a postdoc at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and one of the lead authors of the paper, which appears in the Oct…
When taken by mouth, the drug was well tolerated with limited toxicity. An intravenous form, delivered within a liposome, was just as effective with fewer side effects. Both approaches — described in the October 22, 2014 issue of Science Translational Medicine — led to complete regression of transplanted tumors. …
The researchers produced evidence that stem cells are responsible for maintaining and regenerating the ‘crypts’ that are a feature of the bowel lining, and believe these stem cells are involved in bowel cancer development, a controversial finding as scientists are still divided on the stem cells’ existence. Using 3D imaging technologies, Dr Chin Wee Tan and Professor Tony Burgess from the Structural Biology division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed for the first time the bowel generates new intestinal crypts by a process called ‘budding’. The finding overturns the existing theory of how intestinal crypts form, with significant implications for our understanding of bowel cancer development. Intestinal ‘crypts’ are pocket-like wells in the bowel wall that produce mucous and absorb nutrients and water…
This switch is driven by p53, the well-documented tumor-suppressing protein. The UNC researchers showed that increasing the level of p53 in scar-forming cells significantly reduced scarring and improved heart function after heart attack. The finding, which was published today in the journal Nature, shows that it is possible to limit the damage wrought by heart attacks, which strike nearly one million people in the United States each year. Heart disease accounts for one in four deaths every year…
Scientists at Brigham Young University discovered the two proteins that pair up and switch on this process — known as autophagy. …
Cells harbour genetic material in the form of DNA, which contains all the information required for the cell to function. Every time a cell divides this information has to be precisely copied so that the newly made cell receives a perfect replica in order that it, too, can function properly. …
“Skeletal metastases develop in up to 70 percent of women who die from breast cancer,” says study co-lead author, Dr. Richard Kremer, director of the Bone and Mineral Unit at the MUHC and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. “This causes considerable suffering and is life-threatening. Preventing this could translate into saving a significant number of lives.” Reduction of metastatic risk by half Dr…
“Skeletal metastases develop in up to 70 percent of women who die from breast cancer,” says study co-lead author, Dr. Richard Kremer, director of the Bone and Mineral Unit at the MUHC and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. …
The research involves a new approach to the challenge of cancer metastasis, the process by which tumors spread to and colonize distant parts of the body. Whereas research has traditionally focused on cancer cells themselves, scientists are increasingly studying the interactions between tumor cells and the tissues around them — the so-called microenvironment. …