Tag Archives: professor

Liposome research meets nanotechnology to improve cancer treatment

While radiotherapy can precisely target just the tumor site, systemic chemotherapy spreads a wide net, sending drugs speeding throughout the entire body in an attempt to kill cancer cells while also killing many healthy cells. Neither of these methods is highly effective when applied alone, therefore separated sessions of chemo and radiotherapy are required when fighting against solid tumors. Reports have shown that ideally, both methods would be employed at the same time…

African American women receive less breast reconstruction after mastectomy

“We wanted to understand whether the racial disparity observed in breast reconstruction among women with breast cancer was related to where women received care, independent of race,” said Tracy Onega, PhD, Associate Professor of Community & Family Medicine, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “This study fills an important gap in addressing whether racial disparities in breast reconstruction are due — at least in part — to disproportionate use of hospitals with services available.” Breast reconstruction after mastectomy is associated with better quality of life and other benefits — in fact insurance coverage for reconstruction is legislatively mandated. …

Radiation therapy, concurrent chemotherapy after surgery is effective treatment for high-risk endometrial cancer

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy. Patients with early-stage disease are typically treated with surgery alone; however, patients with advanced endometrial cancer have higher instances of local or distant recurrence. Concurrent radiation therapy and chemotherapy after surgery is used to reduce the rate of recurrence in patients with advanced disease. This study, “A Phase 2 Trial of Radiation Therapy With Concurrent Paclitaxel Chemotherapy After Surgery in Patients With High-Risk Endometrial Cancer: A Korean Gynecologic Oncology Group Study,” evaluates the efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiation with weekly paclitaxel in patients with stage III and IV endometrial cancer. …

African American women receive less breast reconstruction after mastectomy — ScienceDaily

“We wanted to understand whether the racial disparity observed in breast reconstruction among women with breast cancer was related to where women received care, independent of race,” said Tracy Onega, PhD, Associate Professor of Community & Family Medicine, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “This study fills an important gap in addressing whether racial disparities in breast reconstruction are due — at least in part — to disproportionate use of hospitals with services available.” Breast reconstruction after mastectomy is associated with better quality of life and other benefits — in fact insurance coverage for reconstruction is legislatively mandated. …

Ovarian cancer oncogene found in ‘junk DNA’

Most of those studies have focused on the portion of the human genome that encodes protein — a fraction that accounts for just 2 percent of human DNA overall. Yet the vast majority of genomic alterations associated with cancer lie outside protein-coding genes, in what traditionally has been derided as “junk DNA.” Researchers today know that “junk DNA” is anything but — much of it is transcribed into RNA, for instance — but finding meaning in those sequences remains a challenge. Now a team led by Lin Zhang, PhD, research associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has mined those sequences to identify a non-protein-coding RNA whose expression is linked to ovarian cancer. …

Bone cancer surgical team sees success in new application of surgical aid

The Spider Limb Positioner is a pneumatic arm with three fully articulating joints that can be infinitely adjusted in relation to the operating table where it is mounted. The positioner mobilizes patients’ limbs so surgeons don’t have to, thereby freeing up both their hands to operate. …

New genetic target for a different kind of cancer drug found — ScienceDaily

“Historically, scientists haven’t targeted the proteins in cancer cells that are involved in gene splicing,” said Zefeng Wang, PhD, associate professor in the department of pharmacology and senior author of the Cancer Cell paper. “This is a whole new ballgame in terms of gene regulation in cancer.” There are approximately 25,000 genes in the human genome — the same amount as in a fruit fly. But in humans, these genes are spliced together in different ways to create various kinds of messenger RNA to produce the many different proteins humans require. It’s like a filmmaker splicing together bits of movie scenes to create alternative cuts of a movie…

Dynamic duo takes out cellular trash: Research finds how dead cells are removed from body

Now, Salk scientists have discovered how two critical receptors on these garbage-eating cells identify and engulf dead cells in very different environments, as detailed in Nature Immunology. “To target these receptors as treatments for autoimmune disease and cancer, it’s important to know exactly which receptor is doing what. And this discovery tells us that,” says senior author of the work Greg Lemke, Salk professor of molecular neurobiology and the holder of Salk’s Fran�oise Gilot-Salk Chair. The garbage-disposing cells, known as macrophages, have arrays of receptors on their surface, two of which — called Mer and Axl — are responsible for recognizing dead cells in normal environments and inflamed environments, respectively…

Novel immunotherapy vaccine decreases recurrence in HER2 positive breast cancer patients — ScienceDaily

One of only a few vaccines of its kind in development, GP2 has been shown to be safe and effective for breast cancer patients, reducing recurrence rates by 57%. Further, women with the highest overexpression of HER2 (known as HER2 +3) had no cancer recurrences when they were administered the vaccine after completing trastuzumab (Herceptin), a type of immunotherapy drug known as a monoclonal antibody. HER2 is an oncoprotein that promotes tumor growth and is expressed to some extent in 75-80% of breast cancers. “This is an important and different avenue in immunotherapy research, in that we are investigating ways to prevent cancer recurrence by stimulating the immune system to treat cancer,” says principal investigator Elizabeth Mittendorf, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Surgical Oncology…