Tag Archives: program

Thwarting protein production slows cancer cells’ malignant march

From yeast to worms to humans, this stress response and its primary regulator, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), help normal cells adapt to harsh environments, including the presence of heavy metals, high salt concentrations, low oxygen levels, and of course increased temperatures. "In a perverted twist of fate, cancer cells take advantage of this incredibly ancient survival strategy — the heat shock response — to help them survive despite the best efforts of our own natural defenses, and sophisticated therapeutics, to kill them," says Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist. "And trumping all that, we find it not only helps them survive, it helps them thrive!" Across tumor and cancer types, cancer cells rely on the heat shock response and HSF1 to support the production of vast quantities of proteins and the high-energy demands needed to propel malignancy…

New plan of attack in cancer fight: Two-drug combination, under certain circumstances, can eliminate disease

As described in a paper recently published in eLife, Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and of biology and director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and co-author Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a "targeted therapy" — a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer’s ability to grow and spread — could effectively cure nearly all cancers. Though the research is not a cure for cancer, Nowak said it does offer hope to researchers and patients alike. "In some sense this is like the mathematics that allows us to calculate how to send a rocket to the moon, but it doesn’t tell you how to build a rocket that goes to the moon," Nowak said…

Single men, smokers at higher risk for oral human papillomavirus infection

The study results appeared in the July issue of The Lancet. HPV infection is known to cause virtually all cervical cancers, most anal cancers and some genital cancers. It has recently been established as a cause of the majority of oropharyngeal cancers, a malignancy of the tonsils and base of tongue. HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer is rare, but rates have been increasing rapidly, especially among men…

Gene that controls aggressiveness in breast cancer cells identified

The researchers, whose findings are published this week in the journal Cell, report that the ZEB1 gene is held in a poised state in basal non-CSCs, such that it can readily respond to environmental cues that consequently drive those non-CSCs into the dangerous CSC state. Basal-type breast carcinoma is a highly aggressive form of breast cancer. According to a 2011 epidemiological study, the 5-year survival rate for patients with basal breast cancer is 76%, compared with a roughly 90% 5-year survival rate among patients with other forms of breast cancer. …

Biomarker predicts risk of breast cancer recurrence after tamoxifen treatment

"Most patients with early-stage, ER-positive breast cancer remain cancer-free after five years of tamoxifen treatment, but they remain at risk of recurrence for 15 years or longer after their initial treatment," says Dennis Sgroi, MD, of the MGH Cancer Center and Department of Pathology, lead and corresponding author of the report. "Our biomarker identifies the subgroup of patients who continue to be at risk of recurrence after tamoxifen treatment and who will benefit from extended therapy with letrozole, which should allow many women to avoid unnecessary extended treatment." Previous research by Sgroi’s team, in collaboration with investigators from bioTheranostics Inc., discovered that the ratio between levels of expression of two genes — HOXB13 and IL17BR — in tumor tissue predicted the risk of recurrence of ER-positive, lymph-node-negative breast cancer, whether or not the patient was treated with tamoxifen. …