Tag Archives: university

Imaging system guides brain tumor removal to improve patient outcomes

The imaging system is known as desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI MS). The technique was developed by R. Graham Cooks, Ph.D., at Purdue University, and the brain study was done with collaborators at Harvard Medical School and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and is described in the June 30 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. DESI MS promises to be a significant improvement over the current method of distinguishing brain tumor tissue from healthy tissue, which relies on an extremely lengthy and difficult procedure for surgeons and patients…

HPV vaccine could ‘close the gap’ on Australian Indigenous health

The research, which was done in collaboration with the University of Sydney, is based on national hospital admission rates and shows a similar result in the female Indigenous population, which has historically had significantly higher rates of cervical cancer. Genital warts and cervical cancer are both caused by HPV…

Prostate cancer prevention trial identifies men mostly likely to undergo challenging study procedure

The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial which tested the efficacy of finasteride, a drug used for prostate cancer prevention. This study was conducted by SWOG — a cancer research cooperative group that designs and conducts multidisciplinary clinical trials…

Novel drug action against solid tumors explained

Their paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the culmination of nearly a decade of research into the role of arginine — and its deprivation — in the generation of excessive autophagy, a process in which the cell dies by eating itself. Study co-author Hsing-Jien Kung, a cancer biologist and UC Davis professor emeritus who now leads the National Health Research Institutes in Taipei, Taiwan, first discovered the mechanism by which arginine deprivation works in 2009, when he led basic science research at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Traditional cancer therapies involve ‘poisoning’ by toxic chemicals or ‘burning’ by radiation cancer cells to death, which often have side effects,” Kung said. “An emerging strategy is to ‘starve’ cancer cells to death, taking advantage of the different metabolic requirements of normal and cancer cells. …

Editing HPV’s genes to kill cervical cancer cells

Using the genome editing tool known as CRISPR, the Duke University researchers were able to selectively destroy two viral genes responsible for the growth and survival of cervical carcinoma cells, causing the cancer cells to self-destruct. The findings, appearing online August 7 in the Journal of Virology, give credence to an approach only recently attempted in mammalian cells, and could pave the way toward antiviral strategies targeted against other DNA-based viruses like hepatitis B and herpes simplex. “Because this approach is only going after viral genes, there should be no off-target effects on normal cells,” said Bryan R. …

New way to more accurately detect cervical cancer in women

The American Cancer Society predicts that this year in the United States, more than 12,100 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, and roughly 4,220 women will die of the disease. Newer Pap tests and HPV screening more accurately identify pre-cancerous cellular changes that potentially develop into cervical cancer…

Pancreatic cancer survival rates at standstill for four decades

Today just over three per cent of pancreatic cancer patients survive for at least five years, only a fraction more than the two per cent who survived that long in the early 1970s. Across all cancers, half of patients now survive at least twice that long. But most cases of pancreatic cancer go undetected until it is too late for surgery. …