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A key enzyme that cuts short our cellular lifespan in an effort to thwart cancer has now been linked to body mass. Until now, scientists believed that our relatively long lifespans controlled the expression of telomerase--an enzyme that can lengthen the lives of cells, but can also increase the rate of cancer. "Mice express telomerase in all their cells, which helps them heal dramatically fast. Skin lesions heal much faster in mice, and after surgery a mouse's recovery time is far shorter than a human's. It would be nice to have that healing power, but the flip side of it is runaway cell reproduction--cancer."
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Genetic fingerprints that reveal where a brain cell came from remain distinct even after the cell becomes a brain tumor.
"Brain tumors arising in different regions may be genetically distinct as a consequence of their unique cellular origins."
Researchers use information about tumor origins to develop new treatments for the tumors. Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer-related death in children, and the most common childhood brain tumor is the pilocytic astrocytoma (PA).
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Cancer immunoresistance may be partially due to loss of a well-known tumor suppressor gene. It has been known for a long time that cancer cells have many different ways to avoid the immune system, including the common strategies of hiding proteins that are normally expressed on the cell surface or making proteins that act to suppress immune responses. Some researchers believe that immunoresistance may contribute to cancer progression and development. Over the past four years, Parsa's lab has focused on trying to understand how specific mutations associated with high grade glioma correlate with immunoresistance.
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Colorectal cancer is the third most common cause of death in cancer worldwide and approximately one million individuals are diagnosed yearly. Surgery is the primary cure, and if that’s not feasible, only palliative therapy remains.
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In the first experiment of its kind, investigators have shown that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) wrapped in poly(ethylene glycol), or PEG, can successfully target tumors in living animals. The CCNE-TR team began by coating commercially available SWCNTs with PEG, a biocompatible polymer used frequently in drug delivery applications to increase circulation lifetimes and water solubility.
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The incidence of cancer in northern Sweden increased following the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in 1986. Was the increase in cancer caused by the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl or could it be explained by other circumstances? New research provides scientific support for the Chernobyl connection.
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The p53 protein routinely shuts down damaged cells and is one of our main lines of defence against cancer. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now present new findings on how p53 carries out this all-important function.
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Agilent has licensed Kreatech's non-enzymatic labelling technology to allow researchers to study preserved tumour samples that would otherwise be too degraded to study on its microarray platform.
The licensing of Kreatech Biotechnology's labelling technology will allow Agilent to optimise its comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) microarray platform to study formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples.
aCGH is a method for analysing the number of mutations (copy number variations) in one DNA sample compared with another and can be used to identify the mutations involved with genetic diseases such as cancer.
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Array BioPharma Inc. filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for ARRY-520 with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and is now able to proceed with human clinical studies. ARRY-520 is a potent Kinesin Spindle Protein (KSP) inhibitor that caused marked tumor regression in preclinical models of human solid tumors and human leukemias, often leading to durable responses.
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To understand tumor growth, a group of mathematicians applied a model based on a mathematical technique called optimal control theory, and got some interesting results: looked at cancer from the point of view of a tumor and asked: What can a tumor do to optimize its own growth? They focused on the phenomenon of genetic instability, a common feature of cancer in which cells mutate at an abnormally fast rate.
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Researchers have identified a protein which blocks the growth of glioblastomas, a type of brain cancer for which there is currently no cure.
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A synthetic version of a molecule found in the egg cells of the Northern Leopard frog could provide the world with the first drug treatment for brain tumours. Known as Amphinase, the molecule recognises the sugary coating found on a tumour cell and binds to its surface before invading the cell and inactivating the RNA it contains, causing the tumour to die.
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Use of mobile phone may significantly raise the risk of brain tumor in those who use this modern telecommunication tool for more than ten years, a new epidemiological study suggests.
The Finnish study found that those who had regularly used mobile phones for more than ten years were 40 percent more likely to develop brain tumors known as gliomas on the side where they hold their phones.
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Researchers have discovered a novel gene mutation associated with Wilms tumor, the most common pediatric kidney cancer. The newly identified gene is mutated in about 30 percent of cases of Wilms tumor and is located on the sex-determining X chromosome, which means that a single altered copy would be sufficient for tumor formation. The new gene does not appear linked to inherited forms of the disease.
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Stem cell therapy, primarily bone marrow transplantation, plays a key role in treating leukemia and other types of cancer. To better track the fate of stem cells injected into patients, researchers have turned to a combination of fluorine-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nanoparticles made of liquid perfluorocarbons. The team described its use of two distinct perfluorocarbon nanoparticles to track different stem cells injected into tumor-bearing mice. These particular nanoparticles are taken up readily by stem cells over the course of a 12-hour incubation, and the stem cells showed no ill effects from the nanoparticles.
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Drugs used to treat cancer may damage normal, healthy brain cells more than the cancer cells they are meant to target. A study shows that clinical doses of chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat many common cancers cause long-term damage to the brains of mice by killing neural stem cells and oligodendrocytes, which produce the myelin insulation needed for normal neuronal function, and by impairing neural stem cell division. These results might explain the adverse neurological side effects - including reduction in cognitive abilities - observed in some cancer patients treated with chemotherapy.
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An RNA-binding protein that is overproduced in ovarian cancer may present a new target for diagnosis or treatment of ovarian and other cancers.
Knocking down PTB expression with small, interfering RNA "substantially impairs ovarian tumor cell growth, colony formation and invasiveness."
Ovarian cancer is commonly referred to as "the silent killer," as it usually is not discovered until its advanced stages. One woman in 58 will develop ovarian cancer during her lifetime.
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Some of you may have heard about a new drug called DCA that has flooded the Internet with buzz, conspiracy theories and frantic blog posts. For those who haven’t heard about it, it's a drug that was recently discovered to shrink tumors in rats and kill cancerous human cells (in a petri dish). Long story short- it isn't getting the funding it needs for real human testing and FDA approval. Because it's so cheap to make and not patentable, pharmaceutical companies won't touch it. It's a poor investment. It might not end up passing human trials at all, but if the testing is never done will we ever know?
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A cellular signalling pathway protects the liver from developing cancer. Scientists report that blocking this pathway in mice causes chronic hepatitis and liver tumours.
A complex network of cellular signals protects liver cells from damage and death. One molecule that is critically involved in this process is the protein NF-κB. It acts as a survival signal and helps cells to escape programmed death.
"Using genetic methods we switched off a protein called NEMO, which is required to activate NF-κB. The mice first developed a condition similar to fatty liver disease and hepatitis in humans and later on liver tumours."
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Most people know Bernadine Healy, U.S. News health editor, as the former head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. They might not recall that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor eight years ago. In a new book, Healy uses her unique perspective and personal struggle with the disease to explore the state of cancer research, care, and treatment today—and tomorrow.
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Two research teams have developed models for classifying the clinical outcomes of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using mass spectrometry techniques.
One team developed an algorithm to predict the outcomes of NSCLC patients treated with the drugs gefitinib and erlotinib, two tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The algorithm places patients into categories indicating "good" or "poor" survival before treatment with one of the drugs and is based on the pattern of a group of proteins in the patient's blood serum.
In the second study, researchers analyzed protein patterns in NSCLC tumor tissue and normal lung tissue. The researchers identified a pattern that was associated with increased survival among NSCLC patients and may distinguish patients with poor prognosis from those with good prognosis.
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New research in lymphatic cancer shows that bacteria can cause cancer to be more aggressive. Patients with skin lymphoma may benefit from antibiotic treatments used for bacteria-infections.
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Fatigue is one of the most common and distressing symptoms cancer patients experience during chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Researchers are studying fatigue in cancer patients undergoing stem cell transplants using a method successfully used to monitor behaviors such as smoking cessation and alcohol use.
The method is called "ecological momentary assessment" (often referred to as real-time assessment), which provides an instant measurement of patients' fatigue.
Patients used a device that is worn like a wristwatch to record the data.
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A study that researchers claim suggests links between using mobile phones and brain tumours is flawed, radiation experts have said. The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), which advises the government on safety levels, said the study "lacks statistical precision" to draw such conclusions.
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