Study details microRNA’s role as double agent during Hep C infection

Led jointly by Charles Rice, the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor in Virology and head of the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease and Robert Darnell, Senior Attending Physician, Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor, and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-oncology, the research is described in Cell. …

Experts warn of stem cell underuse as transplants reach one million worldwide

HSCT (also known as blood and marrow transplant) is most often used to treat diseases of the blood and several types of cancer such as multiple myeloma or leukemia. For many people with these diseases the only possibility of a cure is to have a HSCT. The procedure provides healthy cells from either the patient (autologous transplantation) or from a healthy donor (allogeneic transplantation) to replace those lost to disease or chemotherapy…

Global health experts call into question sub-Saharan cancer data

Cancer data compiled by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) GLOBOCAN project has huge global influence and is used by Governments and international NGOs to determine health and funding priorities in sub-Saharan Africa. However, no independent evaluation of the data has ever been undertaken. For the first time, experts from Queen Mary University of London have critically evaluated all publically available information on the quality of cancer registration systems in sub-Saharan Africa. …

Urine test could lead to better treatment of bladder cancer

Being able to reliably identify those patients with the most aggressive cancers early via urine tests, and expediting aggressive therapeutic strategies, may significantly improve outcomes. The scientists believe that the validation of two urinary biomarkers could spell a new way of tailoring treatment…

New breast cancer test links immune ‘hotspots’ to better survival

Researchers used statistical software previously used in criminology studies of crime hotspots to track the extent to which the immune system was homing in and attacking breast cancer cells. The test, described in the journal Modern Pathology, could assess whether a woman’s immune system is holding a cancer at bay — and pick out those who will need intensive treatment to combat their more aggressive disease. Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, analysed tumour samples from 245 women with a type of breast cancer called oestrogen receptor negative (ER negative), which is particularly hard to treat. …

New tool provides maps of protein interactions for 2,800 diseases

Scientists working in the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology Lab have included the more than 23,000 documented genetic mutations that affect the function of 2,000 proteins in an open-access web tool, and have positioned them on the map of known interactions between human proteins. dSysMap can be accessed free of charge at http://dsysmap.irbbarcelona.org, and scientists from around the world can add their data in an anonymous manner. Developed entirely at IRB Barcelona, dSysMap (“Disease-mutations Systemic Mapping”) provides molecular details about how mutations in certain proteins alter interactions with other proteins, thus affecting the correct funcion of cellular processes. The tool has explained, for example, why mutations in a single protein can cause two distinct diseases or why mutations in different proteins can trigger the same condition. …