Growth Factor News and Research

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Research adds to growing understanding of the metabolic consequences of assisted reproductive techniques

Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, finds that assisted reproductive techniques alter the expression of genes that are important for metabolism and the transport of nutrients in the placenta of mice.

27 Jul 2009

Growth factor enhances heart regeneration, improves heart function without need for cardiac stem cells

Injured heart tissue normally can't regrow, but researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have now laid the groundwork for regenerating heart tissue after a heart attack, in patients with heart failure, or in children with congenital heart defects.

24 Jul 2009

Caspase-8 protein plays an important role in proliferation and invasion of cancer cells

Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research have found that the Caspase-8 protein, long known to play a major role in promoting programmed cell death (apoptosis), helps relay signals that can cause cancer cells to proliferate, migrate and invade surrounding tissues. The study was published in the journal Cancer Research on June 15.

24 Jul 2009

UT Southwestern Medical Center grant aids study of lung cancer in people who never smoked

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are among an elite group of cancer scientists to share a $2 million grant to find biomarkers for lung cancer that develops in people who have never smoked.

21 Jul 2009

TGF beta blocker prevents epilepsy following traumatic brain injury

Dr. Alon Friedman, a neurosurgeon, professor and researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, working with researchers from UC Berkeley, California have identified a TGF Beta Blocker that when given to rats prevents epilepsy after brain damage, according to a new study appearing in the July 15 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

19 Jul 2009

Skin cancer researchers throw new light on tumour growth

Three researchers from the Dermatology Research Foundation at the University of Sydney have identified a compound produced by certain fatal skin cancer tumours, providing new hope for developing treatments.

14 Jul 2009

Discovery of key gene for bone development that when mutated lead to dwarfism

Scientists have just discovered the gene behind Recessive Omodysplasia, a rare skeletal disease characterised by short-limbed dwarfism and craniofacial anomalies.

9 Jul 2009

Erythropoietin improves learning and other higher brain functions

Healthy young mice treated with erythropoietin show lasting improved performance in learning and other higher brain functions. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology tested the cognitive effects of the growth factor, finding that it improved the sequential learning and memory components of a complex long-term cognitive task.

7 Jul 2009

New biomarker predicts brain tumor's response to cediranib therapy

A report in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, highlights a new biomarker that may be useful in identifying patients with recurrent glioblastoma, or brain tumors, who would respond better to anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, specifically cediranib.

23 Jun 2009

A new take on growth factor signaling in tamoxifen resistance

Differences in growth factor (GF) signaling may cause the poor prognosis in some breast cancer cases. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics, suggests that some estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers respond poorly to tamoxifen because of increased GF signaling.

23 Jun 2009

Antisense Therapeutics trial of ATL1101 in prostate cancer shows promise

Antisense Therapeutics Ltd. (ASX: ANP) has reported further positive results from its collaborative preclinical research studies on the therapeutic potential of ATL1101 in prostate cancer. In experimental models, ATL1101 treatment significantly enhanced the tumor-suppressive effect of the cancer drug Paclitaxel. Paclitaxel is one of a class of drugs known as taxanes.

18 Jun 2009

A new way to tackle age-related macular degeneration

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine in collaboration with lead investigators at the University of Kentucky have identified a new target for the diagnosis and treatment of age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in older Americans.

15 Jun 2009

Appetite-stimulating hormone may protect muscle from atrophy

Researchers have found a potential new treatment for the common problem of muscle atrophy. Results of the animal study were presented at The Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

13 Jun 2009

Hormone therapy may confer more aggressive properties to prostate tumours

Hormone therapy is often given to patients with advanced prostate cancer. While it is true that the treatment prevents growth of the tumour, it also changes its properties. Some of these changes may result in the tumour becoming more aggressive and more liable to form metastases. This is one of the conclusion of a thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

10 Jun 2009

Discovery of new angiogenesis protein - possible cancer drug target

To grow and spread, tumors need new blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. One growth factor that causes angiogenesis has been identified - vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF - and drugs to inhibit VEGF are already in use. But not all tumors respond to the therapy initially or over the long term. Thus new growth factors need to be identified to aid in developing the next generation of angiogenesis inhibitors.

9 Jun 2009

Study reveals mechanism that could combat congenital limb defects like Holt-Oram syndrome

Gregg Duester, Ph.D., professor of developmental biology at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham), along with Xianling Zhao, Ph.D., and colleagues, have clarified the role that retinoic acid plays in limb development.

9 Jun 2009

Discovery of novel mechanism controlling tumor growth in the brain

As survival rates among some patients with cancer continue to rise, so does the spread of these cancers to the brain - as much as 40 percent of all diagnosed brain cancers are considered metastatic, having spread from a primary cancer elsewhere in the body.

9 Jun 2009

Gene activity reveals dynamic stroma microenvironment in prostate cancer

As stroma - the supportive framework of the prostate gland - react to prostate cancer, changes in the expression of genes occur that induce the formation of new structures such as blood vessels, nerves and parts of nerves, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

9 Jun 2009

Cancer vaccine efficacy enhanced using anti-diabetic drug Metformin

After a vaccination or an infection, the human immune system remembers to keep protecting against invaders it has already encountered, with the aid of specialized B-cells and T-cells. Immunological memory has long been the subject of intense study, but the underlying cellular mechanisms regulating the generation and persistence of long-lived memory T cells remain largely undefined. Now, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers have found that a common anti-diabetic drug might enhance the effectiveness of vaccines. The findings are described this week in an advanced online publication of Nature.

4 Jun 2009

Vandetanib shows clinical benefit when combined with docetaxel for lung cancer

When combined with standard chemotherapy, an international Phase III trial has shown that the oral targeted therapy vandetanib improves progression-free survival for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, according to research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

1 Jun 2009