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Study details how breast tumors may flip TGF-beta signalling switch

Signals can tell cells to act cancerous, surviving, growing and reproducing out of control. And signals can also tell cells with cancerous characteristics to stop growing or to die. In breast cancer, one tricky signal called TGF-beta does both - sometimes promoting tumors and sometimes suppressing them.

17 Feb 2012

Scientists create first 3-D living tissue model of glioma

Brown University scientists have created the first three-dimensional living tissue model, complete with surrounding blood vessels, to analyze the effectiveness of therapeutics to combat brain tumors. The 3-D model gives medical researchers more and better information than Petri dish tissue cultures.

17 Feb 2012

IKK2 enzyme plays a key role in proliferation of lung cancer cells

Drugs targeting an enzyme involved in inflammation might offer a new avenue for treating certain lung cancers, according to a new study by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

17 Feb 2012

Scientists track initial steps of type 1 diabetes mellitus

Scientists have taken a remarkably detailed look at the initial steps that occur in the body when type 1 diabetes mellitus first develops in a child or young adult.

17 Feb 2012

Scientist uses GPUs to simulate inner workings of human cells

The cure for cancer comes down to this: video games. In a research lab at Wake Forest University, biophysicist and computer scientist Samuel Cho uses graphics processing units (GPUs), the technology that makes videogame images so realistic, to simulate the inner workings of human cells.

17 Feb 2012

Cryoablation increases survival rates in ovarian cancer patients

Ovarian cancer, which killed 15,000 American women last year, is one of the deadliest forms of cancer. A team of Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers recently proved that freezing tumors increases survival rates in ovarian cancer patients.

17 Feb 2012

Illumina introduces Cancer Analysis Service from IGN

Illumina, Inc. today announced the launch of a Cancer Analysis Service from the Illumina Genome Network (IGN) that leverages the high accuracy of Illumina technologies to provide cancer researchers with easily interpretable tumor/normal sequencing data to quickly move their research forward.

From Illumina, Inc. 16 Feb 2012

MV-GFP extends survival of animals with medulloblastoma

A strain of measles virus engineered to kill cancer cells prolongs survival in a model of medulloblastoma that is disseminated in the fluid around the brain, according to a new study by researchers at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute and the Mayo Clinic.

16 Feb 2012

Thrombocytosis linked to severity of ovarian cancer

Highly elevated platelet levels fuel tumor growth and reduce the survival of ovarian cancer patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer center reports in the New England Journal of Medicine.

16 Feb 2012

Pyromaker can rapidly sequence cancer-driving mutations

Using precise information about an individual's genetic makeup is becoming increasingly routine for developing tailored treatments for breast, lung, colon and other cancers. But techniques used to identify meaningful gene mutations depend on analyzing sequences of both normal and mutant DNA in tumor samples, a process that can yield ambiguous results. Now, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers says it has developed an easy-to-use online computer software application that can clear up any confusion faster and cheaper than other methods currently used to do the job.

16 Feb 2012

UC Cancer Institute to enroll up to 60 patients for AMG 595 phase-1 trial

The UC Cancer Institute is one of three centers internationally approved to test an experimental drug's safety and pharmacokinetics and also assess the clinical benefit against recurrent malignant glioma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

16 Feb 2012

TFF3 protein plays a more sinister role in breast cancer metastasis

The trefoil factor 3 (TFF3) protein protects and maintains the integrity of the epithelial surface in the normal breast. New research has found that while TFF3 protein expression is higher in well-differentiated low grade tumors and therefore associated with features of a good prognosis, it has a more sinister role in breast cancer invasion and metastasis.

16 Feb 2012

Combination of therapeutic cancer vaccines and chemotherapy shows promise

Therapeutic cancer vaccines, which stimulate the body's immune system to target and destroy cancer cells, are being used in combination with conventional chemotherapy with growing success, as described in several illuminating articles in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

16 Feb 2012

Ovarian cancer subtype may be susceptible to 'anti-angiogenic' drugs

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a subtype of ovarian cancer able to build its own blood vessels, suggesting that such tumors might be especially susceptible to "anti-angiogenic" drugs that block blood vessel formation.

15 Feb 2012

Moffitt receives patent for computerized system designed to improve clinical trial selection

A new patent has been issued to Moffitt Cancer Center for a computerized system that efficiently selects the right patient for the right clinical trial. The newly patented system matches the registered patient's own molecular profile - warehoused in a database of thousands of patient-donated biological tissue or tumor samples - to the molecular design of the drug aimed at targeting their disease at the molecular level, and does it quickly.

15 Feb 2012

Cartilage graft can stimulate bone regeneration

A person has a tumor removed from her femur. A soldier is struck by an improvised explosive device and loses a portion of his tibia. A child undergoes chemotherapy for osteosarcoma but part of the bone dies as a result.

14 Feb 2012

Postoperative radiotherapy does not really help elderly lung cancer patients

A controversial radiation treatment for patients who've had lung cancer surgery may not help elderly people live longer, U.S. researchers have found. Postoperative radiotherapy, or PORT, is thought to cut the chances that a tumor will return. But it can damage the heart and lungs, which might cancel out any potential benefits -- particularly in the elderly.

14 Feb 2012

Gene sequencing could identify genetic variants of lung cancer and colorectal cancer

Foundation Medicine Inc., a molecular information company that brings comprehensive cancer gene analysis to routine clinical care, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have come up with the results from their collaborative next-generation sequencing (NGS) study to assay cancer-relevant genes in 24 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 40 colorectal cancer (CRC) cases.

14 Feb 2012

Epigenetic mechanisms maintain tolerance in T cells specific for self antigens

At the most basic level, the immune system must distinguish self from non-self, that is, it must discriminate between the molecular signatures of invading pathogens (non-self antigens) and cellular constituents that usually pose no risk to health (self-antigens).

14 Feb 2012

'Targeted' drugs may be effective against lung and colorectal tumors driven by novel gene abnormalities

Novel gene abnormalities discovered in a subpopulation of lung and colorectal tumors could potentially identify patients with a good chance of responding to highly specific "targeted" drugs already in use for treating other cancers, scientists report.

14 Feb 2012