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Tag Archives: cancer
Using inflammation to inhibit tumor growth
Part of the body’s repair kit for cancer is to induce inflammation. Unfortunately, inflammation of tumors very often makes the cancer worse by encouraging the growth of new cells. A new study by a large Swedish and Belgian research team, published online in the journal Cancer Cell [January 7, 2011; HRG Inhibits Tumor Growth and [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged HRG, immune system, inflammation, macrophage, PIGF, tumor, white blood cells 1 Comment
Inflammation: An unsuspected killer
Inflammation: An unsuspected killer. One in a series of posts discussing the impact of ten topics framed by ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell development, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. Lists of a [...]
Posted in Impact: Major Disease Cures Also tagged Alzheimers, atherosclerosis, bacteria, diabetes, inflammation, Parkinsons, Type II Leave a comment
CellSearch: Wishing for a cancer blood test
I’m beginning to think that wishing for breakthroughs in cancer treatment is part of the modern condition. Fifty or sixty years ago, such wishing was almost outside the realm of the thinkable. Today, well it’s rare that a few months go by without some kind of cancer breakthrough or another. It makes wishing seem worthwhile. [...]
Posted in Impact: Major Disease Cure Also tagged assay, assay chip, blood sample, cancer cell, cell count, CellSearch, Massachusetts General Hospital, molecular analysis, tumor, Veridex Leave a comment
Low dose aspirin: Also good against cancer
Aspirin makers rejoice. Not only is taking a low dose of aspirin (for many people) a preventive measure for heart attacks, it now appears it may have a similar preventive effect for some kinds of cancer. A major study led by Professor Peter Rothwell of Oxford University (UK) and published in the medical journal The [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged aspirin, colorectal cancer, low dose Leave a comment
Fighting cancer with targeted therapy for ‘reader’ proteins
There are many kinds of cancer. Not surprisingly there are many ways to treat cancer although three major approaches are familiar to most people: Zap it with radiation. Kill it with toxic chemicals (chemotherapy). Cut it out (surgery). These are generally speaking knuckle-punch approaches – invasive, imprecise, and typically have serious side-effects. However, they work…sometimes [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged BRD4, BRD4-NUT, DNA, JQ1, NMC, NUT, NUT midline carcinoma, personalized medicine, reader protein, targeted therapy Leave a comment
Stem cells: Myc does much more
To put it mildly, not thinking beyond assumptions can lead to surprises. This also applies to science. For many years scientists thought that the gene known as Myc (“mick”) plays a role in causing cancer – an oncogene – and that was all it did. It does play a role in cancer; Myc somehow lengthens [...]
Posted in Impact: Stem Cells Also tagged cell biology, cell differentiation, GATA6, molecular biology, Myc, oncogene, pluripotent, protein, stem cell 1 Comment
New for epigenetics: Active pseudogenes and RNA as gene regulator
How is it that the human genome, with about 23,000 protein coding genes, can produce such a complicated organism as the human being, when the laboratory flatworm (C. elegans, a relatively simple organism) has about 20,000 coding genes? It seems fairly obvious that there must be something else at work in more complex organisms that [...]
Posted in Impact: Cell Biology Also tagged cell biology, ceRNA, DNA, epigenetics, genome, microRNA, molecular biology, mRNA, proteins, pseudogene, PTEN, PTENP1, RNA Leave a comment
Nanosponge delivers
Right up there in frequency with using nanotechnology for face powders has to be the myriad ways in which nanotech is, will, or can be used to deliver medicine. Why nanotech? For one thing, the nanoscale is small enough to be effective in attaching to or passing through cell membranes. Nanotech materials can be easier [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged drug-delivery, linkers, nanomedicine, nanosponge, peptide, polyester 5 Comments
Cell phones and cancer: Another inconclusive round of study
Here we go again. Sometime today (May 18, 2010) a report from a massive study by the Interphone International Study Group of the potential cancer causing effects of using cell phones will be released in the International Journal of Epidemiology. This $24 million United Nations sponsored study spanning a decade and 13 countries was the [...]
Posted in Spun Also tagged cell phone, microwave, mobile phone, radiation, risk, tumors, U.N. Leave a comment
Discovery: Cell protein transport and an approach to cancer
The center of this story, in more ways than one, is the Golgi apparatus (pronounced ‘goal jee’). As a crude analogy, think of the Golgi apparatus as a re-packaging operation inside of living cells. It receives packages (called vesicles, which are like tiny bubbles) of proteins from the parts of the cell where proteins are [...]
Posted in Impact: Cell Biology Also tagged cell biology, cell membrane, Golgi body, mitochondria, palmitoylation, palmostatin B, protein, proteomics, RAS, transport Comments closed
First ‘cancer vaccine’ approved in U.S.
In a way, it is something of a milestone along the road to treating one of mankind’s worst diseases – cancer. The formal approval of an anti-cancer ‘vaccine’ (I’ll explain the quotation marks shortly) is a first for the United States, and as such is a signal to the rest of the world that treatment [...]
Posted in Impact: Major Disease Cures Also tagged chemotherapy, Dendreon, FDA, prostate cancer, Provenge, vaccine Leave a comment
Surprise verdict in U.S. gene patent case
Most people think they own their DNA – “My genes, my body.” Well of course you do. Except when it comes to analyzing those genes. Right now companies own patents on about 2,000 of your genes. Typically they make equipment and/or procedures to analyze them. So far, this is legal in the United States, which [...]
Posted in Impact: DNA Decoding Also tagged BRCA1, BRCA2, DNA, gene diagnostic, genome, Myriad Genetics, patent law, product of nature, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO Leave a comment
First human trials: Nanoparticles deliver anti-cancer siRNA
Human trials – that’s news. Nanoparticles that target cancer have been in the laboratories (and floating around rodent blood) for many years, but a team of researchers and doctors from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA) has moved the tests (Phase I) to human subjects – into people with cancer. That’s a big step. [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged cell membrane, clinical trials, nanomedicine, nanotechnology, Phase I, RNAi, siRNA, targeted nanoparticles Leave a comment
Cutting cancer cell immortality short
One of the characteristics of cancer cells is that they don’t die of old age. In a sense, they’re immortal – though of course they can be killed. The main reason for their longevity has been traced to telomeres a strip of non-coding genes at the ends of chromosomes. When normal cells replicate very often [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged chromosomes, Fbx4, proteins, telomerase, telomeres, TIN2, TRF1 1 Comment
Giving Roger Ebert a voice
The Pulitzer prize-winning movie critic, Roger Ebert, lost his voice to cancer several years ago. He is one among many thousands of people a year who lose their ability to speak from disease or injury. There are some technology fixes for replacing the physical reproduction capability. (See SciTechStory: Replacing the larynx with a palatometer) However, [...]
Posted in Impact: Computer Power Also tagged Ebert, Hawking, movies, Oprah, vocal chords, voice production Leave a comment
Personalized monitoring of cancer recovery
Step by step the treatment of cancer becomes more personalized. The latest advance, in research from John’s Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA), uses a full-genome DNA sequence of a patient’s cancer to determine its ‘signature.’ Thereafter, in screens of blood tests, that signature – usually consisting of the more obvious chunks of rearranged DNA rather than [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged chromosomes, CT scan, DNA sequence, Pare test Leave a comment
Two new cancer-killing nanoparticles
To use an overworked phrase, it’s a paradigm shift: Cancer research is learning how to ‘think small’ with the potential of nanotechnology – nanoparticles specifically. It’s a shift because medical science has been accustomed to cancer-fighting techniques on the level of bringing cannons to kill a fly. Where doctors once treated cancer with a body-wide [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged chemotherapy, nanobubbles, nanomedicine, nanoparticles Leave a comment
Why do some cancers resist treatment?
Sometimes one of the most important things about research is the questions it provokes. In this case, the question “Why do some cancers resist treatment?” comes out of research that has found a plausible answer. The work involved a standing question in stem cell research – How does the body regulate the two different kinds [...]
Brain cancer genome sequenced
The cost of sequencing a human genome has come down, way down; and the value of doing it is going up. Here’s a very good example: scientists at the University of California Los Angeles (USA) recently completed the sequencing of the DNA from a type of brain cancer cell line, a glioblastoma known as U87. [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged brain, DNA, GBM, genetic, genome, glioblastoma, U87 Leave a comment
Formerly, one brain cancer…now it’s four
One of the things that makes cancer so difficult to ‘cure’ is that it has so many forms. Perhaps most difficult of all, as scientists are learning, are cancers such as the most common and usually fatal brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). As a new study at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, USA) [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged brain tumor, GBM, gene expression, glioblastoma multiforme Leave a comment
Cancer cause found in cell communication
The link between stress and cancer has been known (or supposed) for many years, but specific evidence has been spotty. A new study by researchers at Yale University and reported in Nature magazine, probed the causes of cancer related to two genes (RAS and scribble), and discovered two not so good pieces of news: Cancerous [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged JNK pathway, mutations, RAS, scribble, stress Leave a comment
Also tracking: Science and tech disappointments
Turning the year to a new decade is bound to produce a wide variety of retrospectives. Lists are always popular. I came across an interesting list the other day at the Scientific American site: 10 Science Letdowns of the New Millennium by Katherine Harmon. The original is presented as a slide show. Why, I’m not [...]
Posted in Impact: General Also tagged alternative energy, anti-science, brain, cars, climate change, electric cars, evolution, exobiology, genetics, global warming, HIV, neurology, paleontology, power grid, science, space, technology 1 Comment
Breast cancer study: 50 women, 1700 genetic mutations