Tag Archives: queen-mary

New drug target can break down cancer’s barrier against treatment

The team at Barts Cancer Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London, have found that a molecule, called focal adhesion kinase (FAK), signals the body to repair itself after chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which kill cancer cells by damaging DNA. When the researchers removed FAK from blood vessels that grew in melanoma or lung cancer models, both chemotherapy and radiation therapies were far more effective in killing the tumors. The researchers also studied samples taken from lymphoma patients. Those with low levels of FAK in their blood vessels were more likely to have complete remission following treatment. …

Could sleeping stem cells hold key to treatment of aggressive blood cancer?

The finding offers the potential that these stem cells could somehow be turned back on, offering a new form of treatment for the condition, called Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). The work was led by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London with the support of Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute…