Tag Archives: university

Gene increases risk of breast cancer to one in three by age 70 — ScienceDaily

In a study run through the international PALB2 Interest Group a team of researchers from 17 centres in eight countries led by the University of Cambridge analysed data from 154 families without BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, which included 362 family members with PALB2 gene mutations. The effort was funded by the European Research Council, Cancer Research UK and multiple other international sources. Women who carried rare mutations in PALB2 were found to have on average a 35% chance of developing breast cancer by the age of seventy. However, the risks were highly dependent on family history of breast cancer where carriers with more relatives affected by breast cancer, were at higher risk. …

Powerful new system for classifying tumors revealed — ScienceDaily

“It’s only ten percent that were classified differently, but it matters a lot if you’re one of those patients,” said senior author Josh Stuart, a professor of biomolecular engineering at UC Santa Cruz. Stuart helped organize the study as part of the Pan-Cancer Initiative of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project…

Uranium Exposure, Skin Cancer: Study May Help Explain Link

The varying health risks from exposure to natural uranium are well established, but Diane Stearns, professor of biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, and her team have been trying to determine if there is a link between uranium exposure and skin cancer, stating that skin may have been overlooked in the past. In a recent article published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, the NAU team shared results from a study that explored photoactivation of uranium as a means to increase its toxicity and ability to damage DNA. …

Cell mechanics may hold key to how cancer spreads, recurs

Some particularly enterprising cancer cells can cause a cancer to spread to other organs, called metastasis, or evade treatment to resurface after a patient is thought to be in remission. The Illinois team, along with colleagues in China, found that these so-called tumor-repopulating cells may lurk quietly in stiffer cellular environments, but thrive in a softer space. The results appear in the journal Nature Communications…

No apparent link between sleep apnea and cancer: Large study

Studies have postulated that obstructive sleep apnea may be linked to cancer because of low levels of oxygen in the blood. “There is a need for a sufficiently large cohort study with a long enough follow-up to allow for the potential development of cancer that adjusts for important potential confounders, examines common cancer subtypes and has a rigorous assessment of both obstructive sleep apnea and cancer,” writes Dr. Tetyana Kendzerska, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women’s College Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., with coauthors. To understand whether obstructive sleep apnea is associated with cancer development, researchers undertook a study of 10 149 patients with the disorder who underwent a sleep study between 1994 and 2010. …

Gene-editing technique offers new way to model cancer

Now, MIT researchers have found an alternative: They have shown that a gene-editing system called CRISPR can introduce cancer-causing mutations into the livers of adult mice, enabling scientists to screen these mutations much more quickly. In a study appearing in the Aug. …

Discovery about wound healing key to understanding cell movement

Professor Wayne Brodland is developing computational models for studying the mechanical interactions between cells. In this project, he worked with a team of international researchers who found that the way wounds knit together is more complex than we thought…

Trapped: Cell-invading piece of virus captured in lab by scientists

This achievement sets the stage to use x-ray crystallography to develop complete images of HIV that include integrase, which in turn will help scientists develop new treatments for the illness. Duane Grandgenett, Ph.D., professor at SLU’s Institute of Molecular Virology and senior author of the study, discovered integrase in 1978, little knowing the piece of virus would provide the basis for an entire class of drugs that now treats HIV…

Many cancer survivors smoke years after diagnosis

“We need to follow up with cancer survivors long after their diagnoses to see whether they are still smoking and offer appropriate counseling, interventions, and possible medications to help them quit,” said Lee Westmaas, PhD, director of tobacco research at the American Cancer Society (ACS) and lead author of the study. Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, chief of medical oncology at Yale University and chair of the AACR Tobacco and Cancer Subcommittee, who was not involved with the study, said in an interview that the findings illustrate the scope of the problem. “Smoking can cause new mutations among cancer survivors that can lead to secondary and additional primary cancers. …

‘Treatments waiting to be discovered’ inside new database

“You can’t imagine the tangled web of data that describes the cause and effect relationships of microRNAs and genes. This multiMiR database will let researchers search efficiently through these relationships for pairings relevant to the diseases they study,” says Katerina Kechris, PhD, associate professor of Biostatistics and Informatics at the University of Colorado Denver, and one of the study’s senior authors. In addition to assisting researchers search for relationships between microRNAs and their genetic targets, the database includes drugs known to affect these microRNAs and also lists diseases associated with microRNAs. “Right now, within this database, investigators can find clues to potential new treatments for various diseases including cancer,” says Dan Theodorescu, MD, PhD, professor of Surgery and Pharmacology at the CU School of Medicine, director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center and one of the study’s senior authors. …