Autophagy News and Research

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Autophagy is a normal process in which a cell destroys proteins and other substances in its cytoplasm (the fluid inside the cell membrane but outside the nucleus), which may lead to cell death. Autophagy may prevent normal cells from developing into cancer cells, but it may also protect cancer cells by destroying anticancer drugs or substances taken up by them.

Discovery may provide new therapeutic avenue to target autophagy in tumors

No matter what type of chemotherapy you attack a tumor with, many cancer cells resort to the same survival tactic: They start eating themselves.

10 Oct 2014

MicroRNA molecule plays crucial role in managing cell survival and growth

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a microRNA molecule as a surprisingly crucial player in managing cell survival and growth.

8 Oct 2014

Genoscience Pharma to present novel cancer therapeutic strategy at EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium

Genoscience Pharma, a company focused on discovering and developing small molecules to treat cancer by targeting cancer stem cells, today announces that it will present data on its most promising candidate at the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, in Barcelona, Spain, on November 18-21, 2014.

3 Oct 2014

Penn Medicine, Wistar Institute awarded NCI grants for four new melanoma research projects

Penn Medicine and The Wistar Institute have been awarded a prestigious $12.1 million SPORE grant from the National Cancer Institute. The five-year Specialized Programs of Research Excellence, or SPORE, grant will fund four new melanoma research projects that aim to translate fundamental laboratory discoveries into new therapeutics to treat melanoma and other skin cancers.

18 Sep 2014

AMPK gene can slow aging process when activated remotely in key organ systems

UCLA biologists have identified a gene that can slow the aging process throughout the entire body when activated remotely in key organ systems.

9 Sep 2014

Researchers show how interplay between nutrition, metabolism, immunity involved in ageing process

Researchers from UCL (University College London) have demonstrated how an interplay between nutrition, metabolism and immunity is involved in the process of ageing.

26 Aug 2014

Reduce inflammatory reaction by losing weight, says researcher

Researchers have found a possible molecular explanation for why overweight is harmful. This new knowledge may provide new drugs for heart attack, stroke, cancer and chronic intestinal inflammation.

25 Aug 2014

Children and adolescents with autism have surplus of synapses in brain

Children and adolescents with autism have a surplus of synapses in the brain, and this excess is due to a slowdown in a normal brain "pruning" process during development, according to a study by neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

22 Aug 2014

Study suggests autophagy is involved in the onset of vascular dementia

Autophagy is a basic catabolic mechanism by which unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components are degraded by lysosomes.

12 Aug 2014

Researchers discover how arginine starvation specifically kills cancer cells

Researchers at UC Davis, City of Hope, Taipai Medical University and National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan have discovered how a drug that deprives the cells of a key amino acid specifically kills cancer cells.

12 Aug 2014

Antimalarial agent chloroquine normalizes abnormal tumor blood vessels

A recent study by investigators at VIB and KU Leuven has demonstrated that chloroquine also normalizes the abnormal blood vessels in tumors. This blood vessel normalization results in an increased barrier function on the one hand -- thereby blocking cancer cell dissemination and metastasis -- and in enhanced tumor perfusion on the other hand, which increases the response of the tumor to chemotherapy.

11 Aug 2014

Scientists identify mechanism by which inherited neurological disease causes muscle weakness in men

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified the mechanism by which a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease causes often crippling muscle weakness in men, in addition to reduced fertility.

11 Aug 2014

Cancer Research UK, CRT and Astellas collaborate to find new drug targets for pancreatic cancer

Cancer Research UK and its commercial arm, Cancer Research Technology (“CRT”), are to join forces with Astellas Pharma Inc. (Tokyo, President & CEO: Yoshihiko Hatanaka, “Astellas”) to find new drug targets in the fight against cancer, with an initial focus on pancreatic cancer.

8 Aug 2014

Penn physiologist receives Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from NIH

Erika Holzbaur, PhD, a professor of Physiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has received the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health.

6 Aug 2014

Autophagy prevents accumulation of toxic proteins associated with type 2 diabetes

People with Type 2 diabetes have an excess of a protein called islet amyloid polypeptide, or IAPP, and the accumulation of this protein is linked to the loss of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells.

25 Jul 2014

Elevated ASM activity linked to Alzheimer's disease

Unclogging the body's protein disposal system may improve memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to a study from scientists at Kyungpook National University in Korea published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

22 Jul 2014

Enhancing autophagy in pre-diabetic patients has potential to prevent onset of diabetes

Diabetes affects almost 400 million people worldwide. One of the hallmarks of this disease is a loss of pancreatic β cells, which secrete insulin. In many patients the reduction of β cells is associated an accumulation of a toxic form of a protein produced by β cells, known as islet amyloid polypeptide.

21 Jul 2014

Scientists find single gene that plays surprising role in manipulating aging

It is something of an eternal question: Can we slow or even reverse the aging process? Even though genetic manipulations can, in fact, alter some cellular dynamics, little is known about the mechanisms of the aging process in living organisms.

18 Jul 2014

Increasing clearance of ALS misfolded protein from neurons improves their survival

In work supported by The ALS Association, researchers have shown that increasing the clearance of misfolded protein from neurons improves their survival. The study was published today in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

30 Jun 2014

CNIO researchers identify over 40 genes that predict aggressiveness of melanoma

Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre have discovered more than 40 genes that predict the level of aggressiveness of melanoma and that distinguish it from other cancers with a poor prognosis. The discovery, published in Cancer Cell, will help to identify unique aspects of melanoma that could contribute to determine the risk of developing metastasis in patients with this disease.

28 Jun 2014