Tag Archives: professor

Mutations of immune system found in breast cancers

Bernard Friedenson, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at UIC, looked at the DNA sequences of breast cancers from 21 different women and found mutations in genes involved in immunity in every one of them. The mutations were different in each of the breast cancers he analyzed, but all the mutations would have affected some aspect of pathogen recognition and defense, especially against viruses, Friedenson said. His results are published in the November issue of Functional & Integrative Genomics…

Obesity a major risk factor in developing basal-like breast cancer

In a study published online by the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, a team led by Liza Makowski, assistant professor with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Sneha Sundaram, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in the Makowski Lab, outlined the biological mechanisms where obesity can create a favorable environment for the growth of basal-like breast cancer tumors. "Obesity is widespread and is one of the few risk factors for breast cancer that we may be able to control, hence our intention in this study was to better understand the molecular mechanisms and/or biomarkers of obesity-related basal like breast cancer that could impact disease prevention," said Dr…

Study improves detection of biomarkers to predict lung cancer

One of the biggest challenges in oncological medicine is to detect lung cancer earlier enough to allow treatment because now the location of these tumors implies a metastasis in about 75% of cases. This research has confirmed that the presence of a protein called C4d "is associated with a mortality increase of people whose tumors contain it, and also the levels of this marker are reduced after surgical removal of the cancer," said Carlos Camps, also a researcher of the University General Hospital of Valencia Research Foundation. This protein "may be a biomarker for early detection and treatment of lung cancer because it would diagnose those people at increased risk for this disease, but no symptoms," adds the scientist Eloisa Jantus- Lewintre, co-author of the work and belonging to General Hospital Foundation…

Low-fat fish oil changes cancer tissue in prostate cancer, study shows

The findings are important because lowering the cell cycle progression (CCP) score may help prevent prostate cancers from becoming more aggressive, said study lead author William Aronson, a clinical professor of urology at UCLA and chief of urologic oncology at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "We found that CCP scores were significantly lower in the prostate cancer in men who consumed the low-fat fish oil diet as compare to men who followed a higher fat Western diet," Aronson said…

Inflammatory skin damage blocked by bleach solution in animal study

The study was conducted on mice. But if shown to work similarly in humans, the inexpensive, widely available household chemical could provide a new way to treat skin damage caused by radiation therapy, excess sun exposure or aging. Dilute bleach baths have been used for decades to treat moderate to severe eczema in humans, but it has not been clear until now why they work…

Chronic diseases hinder good cancer survival rates

How much diseases such as diabetes, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), arthritis, depression and cardiovascular disease mean for cancer survival depends on the type of cancer; but the overall picture is the same. Other diseases have a strong negative impact on both the one and five-year survival rate. For example, for breast cancer the five-year survival rate for patients without other diseases is 83 percent. For patients with one or two other chronic diseases the survival rate is 64 percent, while it is 50 percent for those with three or more diseases. …

Plant oil suppresses viability of human prostate cancer cells

"This line of work dates back to the 1980s when the University of Wisconsin groups led by Drs. Charles Elson and Michael Gould discovered the anti-tumor activity of monoterpenes and soon after, sesqui- and di-terpenes." said Dr. Huanbiao Mo, senior author and professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences. These compounds, widely present in fruits, vegetables and grains, were found to be much more effective in suppressing the growth of tumor cells than that of normal cells. …

Biologists ID new cancer weakness

A new study from MIT biologists has found that tumor cells with mutated p53 can be made much more vulnerable to chemotherapy by blocking another gene called MK2. In a study of mice, tumors lacking both p53 and MK2 shrank dramatically when treated with the drug cisplatin, while tumors with functional MK2 kept growing after treatment. The findings suggest that giving cancer patients a combination of a DNA-damaging drug and an MK2 inhibitor could be very effective, says Michael Yaffe, the David H. Koch Professor in Science and senior author of a paper describing the research in the Nov…