Tag Archives: professor

Novel cancer vaccine approach for brain tumors

“In recent years, researchers and the public have begun to realize the role that the immune system plays in both cancer prevention and treatment,” says senior author Craig Hooper, Ph.D., a Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology at Thomas Jefferson University. “The immune system has great potential for helping fight cancer. This study helps give us a roadmap for future brain cancer vaccines.” The study reports on the results of a second phase 1 clinical trial, after the first phase 1 trial in 2001 lead by David Andrews, M.D., Professor of Neurological surgery at Jefferson, saw tumor shrinkage in eight out of 12 patients tested. …

Study identifying cell of origin for large, disfiguring nerve tumors lays groundwork for development of new therapies

“This advance provides new insight into the steps that lead to tumor development and suggests ways to develop therapies to prevent neurofibroma formation where none exist today,” said Dr. Lu Le, Assistant Professor of Dermatology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study, published online and in Cancer Cell…

Promising anti-cancer activity in experimental drug: Next-gen melanoma drug, TAK-733, excels in lab tests

“The importance of this molecule is that it’s a next-generation and highly potent inhibitor of a known melanoma pathway. It was highly effective against melanoma and the method of our study — using patient-derived tumor samples grown in mice — makes us especially optimistic that we should see similar results in the human disease,” says John Tentler, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, associate professor at CU School of Medicine and one of the paper’s lead authors…

Dscovery may help breast cancer treatment — ScienceDaily

Triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs) have a high mortality rate owing to aggressive proliferation and metastasis and a lack of effective therapeutic options. However, Professor Auguste’s team, discovered the overexpression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in human TNBC cell lines and tissues, and demonstrated that it is a potential molecular target and biomarker for TNBC therapy and diagnosis. “No therapies are available to treat triple negative breast cancer cells and because of that patients have a poor prognosis,” said Professor Auguste, the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The Identification of ICAM-1 as a TNBC target and biomarker may lead to the development of a new strategy and platform for addressing a critical gap in TNBC patient care, she added. …

Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT could be cost effective

“The takeaway from this study is that there is potential for lung cancer screening to be done in a cost-effective manner, particularly for adults 65-75 years of age,” said William C. …

‘Landmark’ results for curing hepatitis C in liver transplant patients

The investigational three-drug regimen, which produced hepatitis C cure rates of 97 percent, is an oral interferon-free therapy. Previously, the typical treatment for hepatitis C after a liver transplant was an interferon-based therapy, usually given for 48 weeks. It had a much lower response rate, had a risk of organ rejection and was poorly tolerated because of the immunosuppressants required to prevent rejection. The new oral regimen — ABT-450, ombitasvir and dasabuvir (with or without ribavirin) — produces significantly fewer side effects and is prescribed for 24 weeks…

Bone drug should be seen in a new light for its anti-cancer properties — ScienceDaily

Several clinical trials – where women with breast cancer were given these drugs (bisphosphonates) alongside normal treatment for early-stage disease – showed that they can confer a ‘survival advantage’ and inhibit cancer spread in some women, although until now no-one has understood why. A new study by Professor Mike Rogers, Dr Tri Phan and Dr Simon Junankar from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research has used sophisticated imaging technologies to reveal that bisphosphonates attach to tiny calcifications in tumours in mice. These calcium-drug complexes are then devoured by ‘macrophages’, immune cells that the cancer hijacks early in its development to conceal its existence. The study, which includes remarkable movies of the entire process described above, is published in the journal Cancer Discovery, now online…

Bone drug should be seen in a new light for its anti-cancer properties

Massive non-Hodgkin lymphoma study underway

This has now resulted in the largest epidemiology and genetic studies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) ever conducted. Thus far, these studies have culminated into four genetics papers published in Nature Genetics, American Journal of Human Genetics and Nature Communications, and an entire monograph in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs comprising 13 papers on environmental and medical risk factors found to be associated with various lymphoma subtypes. …

Meditation, support groups: Clear new evidence for mind-body connection demonstrated in study, researchers show — ScienceDaily

A group working out of Alberta Health Services’ Tom Baker Cancer Centre and the University of Calgary Department of Oncology has demonstrated that telomeres — protein complexes at the end of chromosomes — maintain their length in breast cancer survivors who practise meditation or are involved in support groups, while they shorten in a comparison group without any intervention. Although the disease-regulating properties of telomeres aren’t fully understood, shortened telomeres are associated with several disease states, as well as cell aging, while longer telomeres are thought to be protective against disease. …