Biologists have previously found that this kind of transformation, which often occurs in cancer cells as well as during embryonic development, is controlled by transcription factors — proteins that turn genes on and off. …
“What we know now about ECP is that it is able to function in more than one way,” said Ratcliffe. “It can immunotolerize in the autoreactive setting, and immunize against, in a situation such as lymphoma. This enigma poses tremendous opportunity for future basic science investigation in immunology where cancer applications in bone marrow transplantation and lymphoma will benefit from novel therapeutics.” Currently, ECP is used to treat cancer patients who have cutaneous T-cell lymphoma or in patients with Graft versus Host disease after transplantation. There are many questions about how the therapy works and the best schedules for treating patients…
Michigan State University scientists are closer to discovering a possible way to boost healthy cell production in cancer patients as they receive chemotherapy. By adding thymine — a natural building block found in DNA — into normal cells, they found it stimulated gene production and caused them to multiply…
“This is the first time that biofilms have been shown to be associated with colon cancer, to our knowledge,” says co-author Jessica Mark Welch, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass. The discovery, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, draws on a novel way to “see” microbial community structure that was developed by Mark Welch and colleagues at the MBL. Called combinatorial imaging, it could potentially be used to clinically diagnose pre-cancerous and cancerous conditions in the ascending colon…
In a study recently published in the journal Neuro-Oncology, a team of scientists led by Luni Emdad, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., and Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., provided the first evidence of an important link between a specific microRNA, miR-184, and a cancer promoting gene, SND1, in the regulation of malignant glioma. miR-184 is known to suppress tumor development by regulating a variety of genes involved in cancer growth, while SND1 has been shown to play a significant role in the development of breast, colon, prostate and liver cancers. Through a variety of preclinical experiments, the team demonstrated that increasing the expression of miR-184 slows the growth and invasive characteristics of glioma cells through direct regulation of SND1. …
The new approach, a new drug class called gamma secretase inhibitors (GSI), specifically inhibits Notch and shuts down critical genes and cancer cells responsible for tumor growth. Kathy Albain, MD, FACP, who led the study, will present findings Dec. …
Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor, M.D., assistant professor, health services research and breast medical oncology, will present the findings at a poster session of the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Oncotype DX is a 21-gene assay used to help estimate the likelihood of recurrence in women with early-stage breast cancer and, thus, determine those who may or may not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network includes its use for women with lymph node-negative, hormone receptor (HR)-positive and HER2-negative disease. …
The new approach, a new drug class called gamma secretase inhibitors (GSI), specifically inhibits Notch and shuts down critical genes and cancer cells responsible for tumor growth. Kathy Albain, MD, FACP, who led the study, will present findings Dec. …
The IBIS-I trial (International Breast Cancer Intervention Study), led by Queen Mary University of London and funded by Cancer Research UK, examined the long-term risks and benefits of taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease (aged 35-70 years old, primarily with a family history of breast cancer). During the study 7,154 pre and post-menopausal women were randomized to receive either tamoxifen (20mg daily) or a matching placebo for five years. …
Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere, publishing online December 11 in the journal Medical Care, report that by 2008, hospitals that had adopted robotic surgery at the start of the current century (between 2001 and 2004) performed partial nephrectomies in 38% of kidney cancer cases compared to late adopters (2005 to 2008) who performed partial nephrectomies only 24% of the time. Partial nephrectomy, the removal of a section of the kidney as opposed to the removal of the entire organ, is preferred over total nephrectomy because it can achieve similar outcomes in cancer while avoiding the long-term risks associated with total kidney removal, such as cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney failure and premature death…