cancer
Cancer cells move around the body (become metastatic) by chopping up the dense matrix that surrounds them. But drugs that prevent the chopping have been disappointing in animal and human anti-cancer trials. Now researchers provide an explanation for this failure: the drug-treated cells revert to a primordial, ameboid form of cell movement that allows them to squeeze through gaps in the matrix.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a protein called cytidine uridine guanosine binding protein-2 (CUGBP2) can destroy several different types of cancer cells. When the team inserted the protein into cultured tumor cells, more than 70 percent self-destructed. The researchers found that CUGBP2 helps regulate production of cyclooxygenase-2, (COX-2), which is better known as a key culprit in arthritis.
Although the oceans cover 70 percent of the planet's surface, much of their biomedical potential has gone largely unexplored. Until now. A group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, have for the first time shown that sediments in the deep ocean are a significant biomedical resource for microbes that produce antibiotic molecules. In a series of two papers, a group led by William Fenical, director of the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine (CMBB) at Scripps Institution, has reported the discovery of a novel group of bacteria found to produce molecules with potential in the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer.
A lab headed by a Saint Louis University researcher has made a major breakthrough that could lead to a better molecular understanding of cancer. Results published today in the Journal Molecular Cell by Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., and colleagues show for the first time how a protein known to be involved in the development of cancer functions in normal cells. The research shows how the protein "Bre1" plays a pivotal role in determining how the protein "Rad6" functions in modification of chromosomal DNA. Also participating in this research was the lab of Dr. Mark Johnston at Washington University School of Medicine.
Older persons are significantly underrepresented in clinical trials even though this population represents the majority of those who receive drugs and treatments for medical conditions, according to a recently released issue brief by the International Longevity Center ? USA. "People aged 65 and over are woefully underrepresented or even excluded from clinical trails, which evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs and treatments." Dr. Robert N. Butler, president and CEO of the ILC-USA and co-author notes in the preface. "This can result in adverse reactions, inappropriate dosages or treatments, and the misperception that older people cannot tolerate or benefit from new drugs and procedures."
Researchers have found that people with gene mutations associated with abnormally high iron levels are 40 percent more likely than others to develop colon cancer. A report of the research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute today (Jan. 15) found the cancer risk greater in mutation carriers who are older or who consume high quantities of iron.
The presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes predicts the length of remission after chemotherapy and the overall survival of patients with ovarian cancer, according to researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Center on Women's Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Their findings, which are presented in the January 16th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, constitute the first proof that a spontaneous immune response against the tumor dramatically impacts the clinical course of ovarian cancer. These novel findings generate hope that immune therapies may significantly prolong the response to chemotherapy and improve the survival of patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma.
Coonhound puppies on diets containing the type of fat found in deep-fried foods are furthering understanding of how these fats contribute to aging and development of human diseases such as atherosclerosis and cancer, according to Purdue University scientists. One group of dogs fed a highly-oxidized lipid diet and another group fed one with a moderate level of this fat type, both had reduced growth, bone formation and immune function, said John Turek, Purdue professor of basic sciences. This was the first study in dogs to assess the effects of oxidized lipids on growth, antioxidant status, bone development and immune function.
Scientists at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California have found a panel of molecular markers that could signal which patients might have the best results following vaccination for malignant melanoma. According to a study published in the January 15, 2003 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the scientists showed that patient survival improved significantly if their tumors expressed higher levels for these markers, known as melanoma-associated antigens (MAAs).
Important disparities in breast-cancer diagnosis, treatment and survival among American women of various racial and ethnic backgrounds are documented in a new study by researchers in Seattle. The findings are based on the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind to evaluate the relationship between race/ethnicity and breast-cancer stage, treatment and survival. The study evaluated data from nearly 125,000 women representing all major racial/ethnic populations and subpopulations in the United States, the majority of which have only been tracked by national cancer registries since the late 1980s.
Researchers report that surgery combined with inserting heated chemotherapy drugs directly into the abdomen can improve survival rates in patients with disseminated cancer of the abdominal cavity.
Patients participating in the research study had a median overall survival of 16 months. Traditionally, patients with this condition, known as peritoneal carcinomatosis, survive only 3-6 months without treatment. Peritoneal cancer is the most common cause of death in patients with intra-abdominal cancers. Surgery alone has proven to be ineffective, as have external beam radiation therapy, brachytherapy and systemic chemotherapy.
A rare genetic syndrome, Dyskeratosis Congenita (DC), may hold the key to understanding a mechanism that causes premature aging and cancer. Recreating DC in genetically altered knockout mice, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and colleagues proved that the disorder was caused, as theorized, by mutations in the DKC1 gene. Unexpectedly, they also showed that DC was caused by a disruption in ribosome function and not due to shortened telomeres (the distal end of a chromosome arm) as previously hypothesized. Their results, published in the January 10 issue of Science, may have implications for development of drugs that kill cancer cells by specifically targeting ribosomes, similar to the way ribosome targets have been key to the development of antibiotics for specific bacterial infections.
In an unusual disease known as Bloom syndrome, patients exhibit an extremely high incidence of cancers in many tissues. In fact, some experts consider Bloom syndrome to be among the most cancer-prone hereditary diseases known. Although the illness is rare, it fascinates scientists since it can teach them more about how cancers arise and how the body normally suppresses them. Information gleaned from studies of the syndrome should provide insights into other forms of cancer, they say. Now, working with fruit flies on the gene which, when mutated, causes Bloom syndrome in humans, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered more about the key mechanisms by which DNA inside cells is repaired.
Women diagnosed with a specific form of benign breast disease called atypical lobular hyperplasia (ALH) are at increased risk of developing breast cancer, but the risk is not the same for both breasts, researchers report this week. The findings, reported in the British medical journal The Lancet, challenge the long-held belief that the risk for breast cancer in women with this diagnosis was the same in both breasts, an assumption that could be used as an argument for double mastectomy to prevent cancer. Instead, the researchers found that women with this type of abnormality were three times more likely to develop breast cancer than are women without this diagnosis, and that three-fourths of subsequent breast cancers occurred in the same breast.
An Australian study has found that a supplement derived from red clover causes early-stage prostate cancer cells to die in numbers five times greater than in an untreated control group. The findings may explain the mystery of why Asian men, who have pre-cancerous prostate cells at similar rates to men in Western countries, see a much smaller percentage of those cells become cancerous. One previously reported study, for example, finds that 1.8 percent of men in China develop prostate cancer versus 53.4 percent of U.S. males. These findings led researchers to consider dietary differences between the cultures, particularly isoflavones.
