Programmed Cell Death News and Research

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Chk1 and Fbx6 play an important role for the regulation of response to chemotherapy

Cell cycle checkpoints act like molecular tripwires for damaged cells, forcing them to pause and take stock. Leave the tripwire in place for too long, though, and cancer cells will press on regardless, making them resistant to the lethal effects of certain types of chemotherapy, according to researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

28 Aug 2009

Cytrx’s study offers a better perception of arimoclomol's mechanism of action in induced animal stroke

CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR), a biopharmaceutical research and development company engaged in the development of high-value human therapeutics, today announced that study results demonstrated that arimoclomol exhibited both statistically significant neuroprotective and neuroregenerative effects in brain cells of animals induced with stroke, offering important insights into this drug candidate’s mechanism of action.

25 Aug 2009

Disrupting the DNA-repair process

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have uncovered the mechanism behind a promising new approach to cancer treatment: damaging cancer cells' DNA with potent drugs while simultaneously preventing the cells from repairing themselves.

18 Aug 2009

New method selectively kills metastatic melanoma

An international team of researchers has identified a new method for selectively killing metastatic melanoma cells, which may lead to new areas for drug development in melanoma – a cancer that is highly resistant to current treatment strategies.

4 Aug 2009

Selective method kills metastatic melanoma cells

An international team of researchers has identified a new method for selectively killing metastatic melanoma cells, which may lead to new areas for drug development in melanoma - a cancer that is highly resistant to current treatment strategies.

3 Aug 2009

New clues about the roots of neurological disease

Switching off a key DNA repair system in the developing nervous system is linked to smaller brain size as well as problems in brain structures vital to movement, memory and emotion, according to new research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists.

27 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

Discovery of brain-protecting protein

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a novel protein that can protect brain cells by interrupting a naturally occurring "stress cascade" resulting in cell death.

14 Jul 2009

New insight into apoptosis

A study by Nanyang Technological University (NTU)'s Assistant Professor Li Hoi Yeung, Assistant Professor Koh Cheng Gee and their team have made an important contribution to the understanding of the process that cells go through when they die. This process known as 'apoptosis' or programmed cell death, is a normal process in the human body which removes perhaps a million cells a second.

14 Jul 2009

Novel light-sensitive compounds show promise for photodynamic cancer therapy

Chemists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed novel compounds that show promise for photodynamic cancer therapy, which uses light-activated drugs to kill tumor cells.

17 Jun 2009

Discovery in dendritic cell signalling pathways pave way for new therapeutic targets

Scientists from A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) and the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, have discovered another signaling pathway for the activation and apoptosis, or programmed cell death, of dendritic cells. This discovery was published in the advanced online publication of Nature on 15 Jun 2009.

15 Jun 2009

Resveratrol shows potential for significant health benefits

The benefits of alcohol are all about moderation. Low to moderate drinking - especially of red wine - appears to reduce all causes of mortality, while too much drinking causes multiple organ damage. A mini-review of recent findings on red wine's polyphenols, particularly one called resveratrol, will be published in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research; the review is also available at Early View.

12 Jun 2009

MicroRNAs grease the cell's circadian clockwork

Most of our cells possess an internal clock, a group of genes displaying a cyclic expression pattern that reaches a peak once a day. A large number of circadian genes are expressed by organs such as the liver, whose activity needs to be precisely regulated over the course of the day.

31 May 2009

Discovery of method to neutralize tumor growth in embryonic stem cell therapy

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered a method to potentially eliminate the tumor-risk factor in utilizing human embryonic stem cells. Their work paves the way for further progress in the promising field of stem cell therapy.

6 May 2009

CXL12 protein may slow spreading of colorectal cancer

Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center researchers in Milwaukee have learned that a protein, CXCL12, that normally controls intestinal cell movement, has the potential to halt colorectal cancer spreading.

22 Apr 2009

Overexpression of PEA-15 protein shrinks breast cancer tumors

Overexpression of PEA-15, which binds and drags an oncoprotein out of the cell nucleus where it fuels cancer growth, steeply reduced breast cancer tumors in a preclinical experiment, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 100th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

20 Apr 2009

New biomarker may predict aggressiveness of chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego and the Moores UCSD Cancer Center have evidence of a potential new biomarker to predict the aggressiveness of an often difficult-to-treat form of leukemia.

20 Apr 2009

Brain metastases hijack neuron-supporting cells to resist chemotherapy

Cancer that spreads to other organs finds a particularly inviting hideout in the brain, where these metastases are usually far harder to treat than they are in other locations.

20 Apr 2009

Researchers show how PCBs may alter in utero, neonatal brain development

In three new studies - including one appearing online in the Public Library of Science - Biology (PLoS - Biology) - UC Davis researchers provide compelling evidence of how low levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) alter the way brain cells develop.

13 Apr 2009

Monoclonal antibody cancer therapy

The strategy of using monoclonal antibodies for cancer treatment was first described in the late 1970s with the promise that they could be developed into therapies that were highly specific to cancer cells, killing them with few or no side effects.

6 Apr 2009