Leukemia News and Research

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Leukemia (Leukaemia) is a cancer of the blood cells. It is the most common type of blood cancer and affects 10 times as many adults as children. Most people diagnosed with leukemia are over 50 years old. No one knows why some people develop leukemia and others do not. However, scientists have identified some risk factors for the disease. Most people who have known risk factors do not get leukemia, while many who do get the disease have none of these risk factors. During the early stages of leukemia, there may be no symptoms. Many of the symptoms of leukemia don't become apparent until a large number of normal blood cells are crowded out by leukemia cells.

CHOP researchers advance stem cell studies in childhood leukemia, Diamond Blackfan anemia

First produced only in the past decade, human induced pluripotent stem cells are capable of developing into many or even all human cell types. In new research, scientists reprogrammed skin cells from patients with rare blood disorders into iPSCs, highlighting the great promise of these cells in advancing understanding of those challenging diseases-and eventually in treating them.

31 Jul 2013

Technique for developing more targeted drugs using molecular "robots"

Many drugs such as agents for cancer or autoimmune diseases have nasty side effects because while they kill disease-causing cells, they also affect healthy cells. Now a new study has demonstrated a technique for developing more targeted drugs, by using molecular "robots" to hone in on more specific populations of cells.

29 Jul 2013

NOXXON completes patient recruitment of NOX-E36 Phase IIa trial for treatment of diabetic nephropathy

NOXXON Pharma today announced the successful completion of patient recruitment of its NOX-E36 Phase IIa clinical trial for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. NOX-E36 is a Spiegelmer® that binds and neutralizes CCL2/MCP-1 (C-C Chemokine Ligand / Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1), a pro-inflammatory chemokine that plays an important role in the progression of diabetic nephropathy, the most common single cause of chronic kidney failure and end-stage renal disease.

25 Jul 2013

Child cancer survival: an interview with Prof Kathy Pritchard-Jones, University College London

Back in the early 1960s, just before chemotherapy really started to be used, only about 30% of children survived cancer. That was mainly because they had cancers that were amenable to surgery.

24 Jul 2013

Female cancer patients unhappy with the way doctors discussed about fertility preservation options

Young female cancer patients are unhappy about the way fertility preservation options are discussed with them by doctors before starting cancer treatment, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Sheffield and The Children's Hospital, Sheffield.

23 Jul 2013

p53 and cancer research: an interview with Professor Sir David Lane, Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

P53 is a tumor suppressor gene. The gene encodes for a protein that monitors the state of the cell. If something goes wrong, it stops the cell from dividing or causes the cell to commit suicide. I call it the “guardian of the genome” as it is the molecule that seems to keep cells normal. It is one of our big defenses against cancer.

22 Jul 2013

Celgene to discontinue treatment with REVLIMID in phase III ORIGIN trial

Celgene Corporation today announced that after consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Celgene will discontinue treatment with REVLIMID (lenalidomide) in the open-label, phase III ORIGIN trial, which enrolled 450 patients in over 100 sites in 26 countries.

18 Jul 2013

Quest Diagnostics completes sale of ibrutinib commercialization rights to Royalty Pharma

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, announced today that it has completed the sale of its rights to royalties from commercialization of the drug candidate ibrutinib to Royalty Pharma, the industry leader in acquiring royalty interests in marketed and late stage biopharmaceutical products, for $485 million in cash.

From Quest Diagnostics 18 Jul 2013

Discovery provides evidence that genetic defect responsible for Down syndrome can be suppressed

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School are the first to establish that a naturally occurring X chromosome "off switch" can be rerouted to neutralize the extra chromosome responsible for trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by cognitive impairment.

18 Jul 2013

Study shows CMEs can predict risk of cancer in type 2 diabetes patients

Certain chromosomal abnormalities of the preleukemic type appear to be over-represented in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) who are suffering from vascular complications. This finding may provide a partial explanation for the higher rates of cancer-related mortality observed among patients with this type of diabetes.

18 Jul 2013

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals enters into agreement to acquire Talon Therapeutics

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company with fully-integrated commercial and drug development operations with a primary focus in hematology and oncology, today announced that, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, the company entered into an agreement to acquire Talon Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company based in South San Francisco, California, and expects to complete the acquisition within one day.

17 Jul 2013

Largest data set of cancer-specific genetic variations generated by NCI scientists

Scientists at the National Cancer Institute have generated a data set of cancer-specific genetic variations and are making these data available to the research community, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

16 Jul 2013

Seattle Children's leukemia patient has positive response to T-cell therapy

The first patient in a cellular immunotherapy Phase 1 cancer trial at Seattle Children's has had a positive response to T-cell therapy. The 23-year-old patient, Lynsie Conradi, from Bellingham, Wash. received the welcome news yesterday.

12 Jul 2013

Phase III study: REVLIMID meets primary endpoint in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma

Celgene International Sàrl, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Celgene Corporation, today announced that its phase III study (MM-020/IFM 07-01) of REVLIMID (lenalidomide) in combination with dexamethasone in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival.

11 Jul 2013

Advanced genetics technologies may help predict patient outcomes in people with ALL

New evidence suggests that using advanced genetics technologies to monitor for remaining cancer cells after treatment may soon become an effective tool to inform treatment decisions and ultimately predict patient outcomes for patients with a particularly aggressive form of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).

10 Jul 2013

Pharmacyclics submits ibrutinib NDA to FDA for two B-cell malignancies

Pharmacyclics, Inc. today announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the investigational oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor, ibrutinib, for two relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancy indications: mantle cell lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma.

10 Jul 2013

Pfizer's Prevenar 13 receives European approval to include adults for prevention of invasive disease

Pfizer Inc. announced today the company's pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Prevenar 13 (pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine [13-valent, adsorbed]), received European approval for an expanded indication to include adults aged 18 to 49 years for active immunization for the prevention of invasive disease caused by vaccine-type Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae).

10 Jul 2013

Cancer immunotherapies promise to be a new tool in fight against cancer

Drugs that direct a cancer patient's immune system to eradicate her or his disease, known as cancer immunotherapies, promise to be a new tool in the fight against cancer. Since the Koch Institute's inception, exploring the close relationship between the immune system and cancer has been one of the Institute's priority research areas.

9 Jul 2013

p53 restoration of function drug candidate: an interview with Dr. Wayne Danter, MD, FRCPC President and CEO of Critical Outcome Technologies

COTI-2 is a computer-designed small molecule that was discovered by our artificial intelligence drug discovery platform called CHEMSAS.

8 Jul 2013

Study: African Americans with CLL have shorter survival times than Caucasians

A new analysis has found that among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, African Americans more commonly present with advanced disease, and they tend to have shorter survival times than Caucasians despite receiving the same care.

8 Jul 2013

Leukemia News and Research

Further Reading

CHOP researchers advance stem cell studies in childhood leukemia, Diamond Blackfan anemia

Technique for developing more targeted drugs using molecular "robots"

NOXXON completes patient recruitment of NOX-E36 Phase IIa trial for treatment of diabetic nephropathy

Child cancer survival: an interview with Prof Kathy Pritchard-Jones, University College London

Female cancer patients unhappy with the way doctors discussed about fertility preservation options

p53 and cancer research: an interview with Professor Sir David Lane, Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

Celgene to discontinue treatment with REVLIMID in phase III ORIGIN trial

Quest Diagnostics completes sale of ibrutinib commercialization rights to Royalty Pharma

Discovery provides evidence that genetic defect responsible for Down syndrome can be suppressed

Study shows CMEs can predict risk of cancer in type 2 diabetes patients

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals enters into agreement to acquire Talon Therapeutics

Largest data set of cancer-specific genetic variations generated by NCI scientists

Seattle Children's leukemia patient has positive response to T-cell therapy

Phase III study: REVLIMID meets primary endpoint in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma

Advanced genetics technologies may help predict patient outcomes in people with ALL

Pharmacyclics submits ibrutinib NDA to FDA for two B-cell malignancies

Pfizer's Prevenar 13 receives European approval to include adults for prevention of invasive disease

Cancer immunotherapies promise to be a new tool in fight against cancer

p53 restoration of function drug candidate: an interview with Dr. Wayne Danter, MD, FRCPC President and CEO of Critical Outcome Technologies

Study: African Americans with CLL have shorter survival times than Caucasians

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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