General

After years of rigorous research, a team of scientists has identified the genetic engine that drives a rare form of liver cancer. The findings offer prime targets for drugs to treat the usually lethal disease, fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma (FL-HCC), which mainly strikes adolescents and young adults. Sanford Simon, who conducted […]

So-called “triple-negative” breast cancer is a particularly aggressive and difficult-to-treat form. It accounts for only about 10 percent of breast cancer cases, but is responsible for about 25 percent of breast cancer fatalities. Triple-negative breast cancer earns its name because, unlike other breast cancer subtypes, its cells test negative for […]

Cancer immunotherapy drugs have had notable but limited success because in many cases, tumors develop resistance to treatment. But researchers at Yale and Stanford have identified an experimental antibody that overcomes this problem by targeting a wider range of immune cells linked to tumor growth. Existing cancer immunotherapies act on only a […]

Using CRISPR genome editing, the team took the genetic engineering of killer T-cells one step further by removing their non-cancer specific receptors and replacing them with ones that would recognise specific cancer cells and destroy them. Dr Mateusz Legut from Cardiff University, who led the study while undertaking a Cancer […]

Catching cancer early can make all the difference for successful treatment. A common screening practice measures tumor growth with X-ray computed tomography (CT), which takes a series of cross-section images of the body. Before they are used in clinics, researchers test multiple CT imaging techniques with standard objects called “phantoms,” […]

Doctors have many drugs available to treat multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. However, there is no way to predict, by genetic markers or other means, how a patient will respond to a particular drug. This can lead to months of treatment with a drug that isn’t working. Researchers […]

“The biological clock ensures that a plant times its metabolism according to the environment,” says Dorothee Staiger. “Thus enabling it to directly use the first rays of sunlight for photosynthesis to produce carbohydrates, for example.” As the Nobel Prize winners have shown, individual genes in the genome of plants, animals […]

Since it first evolved in the common ancestor to multicellular animals some one billion years ago, the p53 family of genes has played the role of genomic guardian for countless organisms. So essential is its task—to protect the DNA of cells from damage and stress—that some form of p53 can […]

Folding your laundry or doing the dishes might not be the most enjoyable parts of your day. But simple activities like these may help prolong your life, according to the findings of a new study in older women led by the University at Buffalo. In the U.S. study of more […]

Nevan Krogan, PhD, is a mapmaker, but the object of his exploration is not any newfound continent or alien world. Instead, he and his colleagues map cells. Rather than cities, towns and interstates, these maps show proteins, genes, and the shifting, convoluted network of interactions between them. Learning to read […]

Scientists have created mini biological models of human primary liver cancers, known as organoids, in the lab for the first time. In a paper published in Nature Medicine, the tiny laboratory models of tumours were used to identify a new drug that could potentially treat certain types of liver cancer. Primary liver cancer […]

Cornell researchers have taken a major step toward answering a key question in cancer research: Why is testicular cancer so responsive to chemotherapy, even after it metastasizes? Professional cyclist Lance Armstrong, for example, had testicular cancer that spread to his lung and brain, yet he made a full recovery after […]

Harvard Medical School researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have reversed type 1 diabetes in mice by infusing blood stem cells pretreated to produce more of a protein called PD-L1, which is deficient in mice and people with type 1 diabetes. The stem cells curbed the autoimmune reaction in cells from […]

The team of researchers, working with biopharmaceutical company Autolus Ltd, have discovered a method of targeting the cancer without destroying healthy T-cells, essential to the immune system. Lymphomas arise when immune cells, called lymphocytes, that protect us against germs, become cancerous. There are two types of lymphocytes: B-cells and T-cells. […]

Primary liver cancer is now the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and its incidences and mortality are increasing rapidly in the United Stated. In late stages of the malignancy, there are no effective treatments or drugs. However, an unexpected finding made by a team of University of California […]

Paving the way for testing experimental drugs in more realistic environments, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered how to make tiny colonies of cells grow in useful new ways inside petri dishes. The research team’s discoveries might help designers of miniature “lab-on-a-chip” technologies to […]

New research shows that the number of people with Parkinson’s disease will soon grow to pandemic proportions.  In a commentary appearing today in the journal JAMA Neurology, University of Rochester Medical Center neurologist Ray Dorsey, M.D. and Bastiaan Bloem, M.D., Ph.D., with Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, argue that the medical […]

A recent multi-centre study, led by King’s College London and the University of Manchester, has established that synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease is driven by a specific signalling pathway. This pathway is called the Wnt-planar cell polarity (PCP) signalling pathway and it may be pivotal to the progressive neurodegeneration seen […]

Certain prostate cancers and lymphomas have a major genetic weakness that doctors can exploit to help save patients’ lives, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered. The weakness makes the subset of cancers particularly vulnerable to chemotherapy and radiation therapy, suggesting that those approaches should be […]

The busy world inside a cell is directed by its DNA blueprint. When the blueprints are altered, cells can sicken, die or become cancerous. To keep DNA in working order, cells have ways to detect and mend damaged DNA. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis […]

Honeycomb-like arrays of tiny, lab-grown cancers could one day help doctors zero in on individualized treatments for ovarian cancer, an unpredictable disease that kills more than 14,000 women each year in the United States alone. A team of researchers has devised a process that can grow hundreds of cultured cell […]

Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia. Because of its effects Alzheimer’s is usually thought to be a condition which starts at the brain. While scientists are pushing forward to curing and preventing Alzheimer’s they are trying to look at it from many different angles. Now they are starting […]

A new UC San Francisco-led study challenges the dogma in oncology that most cancers are caused by one dominant “driver” mutation that can be treated in isolation with a single targeted drug. Instead, the new research finds one of the world’s most deadly forms of lung cancer is driven by […]

A group of researchers at the University of Tokyo found that a particular gene, interleukin-11, functions as a key factor in inducing and maintaining undifferentiated cells when tadpoles regenerate their tail. Some animal species have the remarkable ability to reconstruct lost appendages. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is one such […]

In its latest pioneering effort to harness the power of focused ultrasound to battle disease, the University of Virginia Health System is examining the scalpel-free surgery’s potential to enable the body to identify and destroy metastatic breast cancer cells. UVA Cancer Center researchers Dr. Patrick Dillon and Dr. David Brenin […]

The blood-brain barrier is the brain’s gatekeeper. A nearly impenetrable shield of cells, it keeps toxins and other agents that may be in circulating blood from gaining access to and harming the brain. A critical anatomical structure, the barrier is the brain’s first and most comprehensive line of defense. But […]

Researchers investigating ways to deliver high doses of cancer-killing drugs inside tumors have shown they can use a laser and light-activated gold nanoparticles to remotely trigger the release of approved cancer drugs inside cancer cells in laboratory cultures. The study by researchers at Rice University and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine […]

Study explains success of some types of cancer immunotherapy, provides new targets for the development of additional immunotherapies. Chronic inflammation is known to drive many cancers, especially liver cancer. Researchers have long thought that’s because inflammation directly affects cancer cells, stimulating their division and protecting them from cell death. But […]

Can environmental toxins disrupt circadian rhythms – the biological “clock” whose disturbance is linked to chronic inflammation and a host of human disorders? Research showing a link between circadian disruption and plankton that have adapted to road salt pollution puts the question squarely on the table. “This research shows that […]

Cancer, the still-dreaded disease because it takes the lives of millions with no proven cure still in sight, might finally get a beating in the next few years. Ascribe it to the courage and innovation of biotech companies which have not given up  the fight against the Big C. They […]