Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Rescuing immune system cells can reduce risk of prostate cancer

Immune therapies have been explored as a way to treat cancer after it develops. But a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that genetic risk of prostate cancer can be reduced by rescuing critical immune system cells.

24 Sep 2009

NIHR to fund patient panel for skin disease research

People who suffer from skin disease are being asked to help make research more effective by joining a new 'Patient Panel'.

24 Sep 2009

Medivation commences patient treatment in clinical trial of MDV3100 in advanced prostate cancer

Medivation, Inc. (Nasdaq: MDVN) today announced treatment of the first patient in a Phase 3 clinical trial of the investigational drug MDV3100 in advanced prostate cancer. Known as AFFIRM, the trial will evaluate the novel androgen receptor antagonist MDV3100 in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer who were previously treated with docetaxel-based chemotherapy.

24 Sep 2009

NIH Director's Pioneer Award and New Innovator Award for Duke scientists

Two Duke University Medical Center scientists have won prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's awards to pursue novel research.

24 Sep 2009

Cook Medical launches next-generation IVC filter delivery system for treating pulmonary embolism

Physicians can now navigate even the most tortuous anatomy with greater speed and safety with the next-generation inferior vena cava (IVC) filter delivery system introduced today by Cook Medical at TCT 2009. The release of the NavAlign™ delivery system marks the 20th anniversary of Cook’s first IVC filter and further advances the treatment of pulmonary embolism (PE), a life-threatening condition caused by blood clots in the lungs that affects thousands of Americans annually.

24 Sep 2009

BREVAGen test offers precise breast cancer risk assessment

Perlegen Sciences, which develops genetic tests that correlate genetic variation to disease risk and drug response, announced today that its BREVAGen™ breast cancer risk stratification test is now clinically available in select U.S. markets. Perlegen plans to add sales areas to make the test available nationwide over the next few months.

24 Sep 2009

TSPs can block cancer-triggering proto-oncogenes

A tiny bit of genetic material with no previously known function may hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer, researchers at Yale School of Medicine and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China report in two papers in the September 7-11 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

24 Sep 2009

VisEn launches new imaging agent for monitoring key hypertension and renal disease biomarker

VisEn Medical Inc., a leader in fluorescence in vivo imaging from research through medicine, announced today the commercial launch of its new ReninSense680(TM) FAST imaging agent for measuring and monitoring a key hypertension and renal disease biomarker in vivo.

24 Sep 2009

Also in global health news: Malawi HIV/AIDS fight; cancer in developing world

Tim Gilbo, the World Bank's director in Malawi, announced on Tuesday that the organization will grant the country $30 million, which will be used to "increase access to prevention, treatment and mitigation services with a focus on behavioural change," SAPA/News24.com reports. Gilbo also said the country should "identify and promote those programmes that are working and drop or redesign those that are not bearing any fruits." UNAIDS Malawi coordinator Desmond Johns said HIV/AIDS is "arguably the single consistent threat in overall development" for Malawi (9/22).

24 Sep 2009

NIH grants $2.5M for the study of physical forces on cell function

The National Institutes of Health today announced an award of $2.5 million to a team led by Boston University biomedical engineer Bela Suki that will study the role of physical forces on cell function, with the goal of understanding the possible roles of these forces in diseases like atherosclerosis, neuro-degenerative diseases, metabolic disorders, aging and cancer.

24 Sep 2009

Marchers, celebrities sound off on health care reform

Across the country, protesters and celebrities are sounding off on health reform as legislation gets closer to becoming reality.

24 Sep 2009

Who are the uninsured and where do they live?

"The nation's uninsured — a growing class of people whose recession-fed ranks have swelled to 46.3 million — are central to the health care debate in Washington and the questions about how and whether to get them covered are as vexing and emotional as they come," USA Today reports. "While the nation waits for Congress and the White House to come up with answers, those who live without insurance say they are waiting scared."

24 Sep 2009

Genetic variation helps identify hepatitis C infected people, according to a study

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers are part of an international team that has discovered a genetic variation that could identify those people infected with hepatitis C who are most likely to benefit from current treatments.

24 Sep 2009

Hsp-27 protein helps identify aggressive prostate cancer

CANCER RESEARCH UK scientists have discovered a molecular 'flag' that predicts survival from prostate cancer at diagnosis, reveals a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

24 Sep 2009

Advanced Biohealing announces growth strategy to expand its product line

Advanced BioHealing, Inc. (ABH), a leader in commercializing the promise of regenerative medicine, announced a strategic growth plan designed to continue the transformation of this former start-up into the leading international regenerative medicine company.

24 Sep 2009

Lab-on-a-chip performs 1,000 chemical reactions at once

Flasks, beakers, and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in medicinal chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a benchtop, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.

From Siemens Healthineers 23 Sep 2009

Twinkling nanostars improve optical imaging of tumors

Researchers at Purdue University have created magnetically responsive gold nanostars that may offer a new approach to biomedical imaging. The nanostars gyrate when exposed to a rotating magnetic field and can scatter light to produce a pulsating or "twinkling" effect. This twinkling allows them to stand out more clearly from noisy backgrounds such as those found in biological tissue. Alexander Wei, Ph.D., and Kenneth Ritchie, Ph.D., M.Sc., led the team that created the new gyromagnetic imaging method. The work appears in a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

23 Sep 2009

Nanodiamonds advance anticancer gene therapy

Gene therapy holds promise in the treatment of cancer as well as a large number of other diseases. However, developing a scalable system for delivering genes to cells both efficiently and safely has been challenging. Now, two teams of researchers have developed versatile nanotechnology-enabled platforms that could get therapeutic genes safely and efficiently into cancer cells.

23 Sep 2009

Golden nanotubes detect tumor cells, map sentinel lymph nodes

Biomedical researchers at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock have developed a special contrast-imaging agent made of gold-coated carbon nanotubes that is capable of molecular mapping of lymphatic endothelial cells and detecting cancer metastasis in sentinel lymph nodes.

23 Sep 2009

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles catalyze brain tumor death

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago Medical Center's Brain Tumor Center have developed a way to target brain cancer cells using inorganic titanium dioxide nanoparticles bonded to antibodies.

23 Sep 2009