Photodynamic Therapy News and Research

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Vanderbilt scientists find new way to destroy microbial vampires

On July 24 Vanderbilt scientist Eric Skaar, Ph.D., MPH, summarized his group's latest paper in a tweet: "If S. aureus is going to drink our blood like a vampire, let's kill it with sunlight."

1 Aug 2017

OIST researchers create taurine-modified photosensitizer for brain cancer therapy

Photodynamic therapy is often used to treat brain tumors because of its specificity—it can target very small regions containing cancerous cells while sparing the normal cells around it from damage. It works by injecting a drug called a photosensitizer into the bloodstream, where it gathers in cells, and then exposing the drug-filled cells to light.

23 Jun 2017

Experimental drug suppresses new defective PTEN cancer pathway, study finds

A collaboration between Saïd M. Sebti, Ph.D., chair of Moffitt Cancer Center's Drug Discovery Department, and Michele Pagano, M.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at New York University's Langone Medical Center, led to the publication of an important study in the latest issue of Nature.

14 Jun 2017

UJI researchers develop new light-activated antimicrobial material to combat hospital infections

Researchers at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón, Spain, have developed a new light-activated antimicrobial material for use in the fight against the most common hospital infections.

11 Jan 2017

UNIST study could open up new avenues of research in cancer treatment

The new study, by researchers from UNIST demonstrates a more holistic light-based treatment to nuke cancer cells instead of surgery. The results, reported in the September issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could open up new avenues of research in cancer treatment.

14 Dec 2016

UMass researchers develop new class of photodynamic molecules for treating deep-tissue tumors

UMass Medical School scientist Gang Han, PhD, and his team have designed a new class of molecules used in photodynamic therapy that are able to direct lamp light deep into tissue to kill cancer tumors.

5 Dec 2016

Photoimmunotherapy may be promising treatment option to combat cancer

When Kerstin Stenson, MD, describes the innovative technique she is helping develop to fight cancer, it seems like she's describing a Tom Clancy military espionage novel.

15 Nov 2016

UPV participates in Lumiblast project to develop novel treatments for hard-to-treat brain tumours

The Polytechnic University of Valencia is taking part in Lumiblast, a European project to develop an innovative approach to hard-to-treat brain tumours like glioblastomas.

14 Oct 2016

Novel microwave-induced photodynamic therapy could target deeply situated tumors

Physicists at The University of Texas at Arlington have shown that using microwaves to activate photosensitive nanoparticles produces tissue-heating effects that ultimately lead to cell death within solid tumors.

12 Oct 2016

Novel therapy offers hope for effective treatment of intractable metastatic cancers

Cancer treatments that mobilize the body's immune system to fight the disease have generated a lot of excitement in the past few years.

19 Sep 2016

Scientists develop novel multifunctional platform to integrate imaging and photo-induced cancer therapy

Physicists from The University of Texas at Arlington are leading a multidisciplinary project with The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to develop a new multifunctional platform that can integrate imaging and photo-induced cancer therapy in a single, portable device.

5 Aug 2016

Soligenix announces encouraging preliminary results of heat stable Ebola vaccine

A biopharmaceutical company collaborating with Hawai'i scientists on an Ebola vaccine announced encouraging news about its vaccine today.

19 Jul 2016

Photodynamic therapy effective in treating porphyrias but can be severely painful, cause inflammation

Severe paleness and photosensitivity are two symptoms of a rare group of hereditary diseases that affect haem, a substance in the blood. While these metabolic disorders - known as the porphyrias - are extremely rare, a similar effect is often deliberately triggered by dermatologists in localised areas during the treatment of pre-cancerous skin lesions and skin cancers.

24 Jun 2016

Clinical study finds two topical skin creams as effective noninvasive treatments for low-risk superficial BCC

Basal cell carcinoma is one of the most common cancers and its incidence is increasing worldwide, putting a significant burden on health services. Topical treatments are available for superficial basal cell carcinoma (BCC) but there has a lack of long-term follow-up data to guide treatment decisions.

3 Jun 2016

NEI-funded study analyzes outcomes of anti-VEGF therapy for AMD

In a study of nearly 650 people with the eye disease age-related macular degeneration (AMD), half still had vision 20/40 or better, typically good enough to drive or to read standard print, after five years of treatment with anti-VEGF drugs that are injected into the eye. The authors of the study, funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health, say those outcomes would have been unimaginable about 10 years ago, prior to the drugs' availability.

3 May 2016

New photo-switchable molecule for PDT could help treat rapidly growing tumors

Photoswitchable agents might reduce side effects of a chemotherapy. So far, photodynamic therapies have been dependent on oxygen in the tissue. But hardly any oxygen exists in malignant, rapidly growing tumors.

25 Apr 2016

Combining photoimmunotherapy and gene transduction effective against elusive gastric cancer cells

Researchers report photoimmunotherapy to be effective against elusive gastric cancer cells following transduction with the gene that expresses the extracellular domain protein of HER2. The results are published in the journal Small Molecule Therapeutics in February 2016.

15 Mar 2016

Combining nanomedicine with two anticancer treatments could improve outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients

A nanoparticle drug-delivery system that combines two complementary types of anticancer treatment could improve outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer and other highly treatment-resistant tumors while decreasing toxicity.

20 Jan 2016

NSCLC treatments market in Europe expected to cross US$ 3 billion by 2019

According to recently published Pharmaion report, "Europe Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatments Market Opportunities, 2010 - 2020", the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatments market in Europe is anticipated to cross US$ 3 billion by 2019.

18 Jan 2016

Soligenix reports positive results from SGX942 Phase 2 trial in patients with head and neck cancer

Soligenix, Inc., a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing products to treat rare diseases where there is an unmet medical need, announced today positive results in its Phase 2 clinical trial, in which SGX942, a first-in-class Innate Defense Regulator (IDR), at a dose of 1.5 mg/kg, successfully reduced the median duration of severe oral mucositis by 50% in all patients and by 67% in patients receiving the most aggressive chemoradiation therapy (CRT) for treatment of their head and neck cancer.

16 Dec 2015