Cancer Research

Chemotherapy is extremely valuable in killing cancer cells but also takes surrounding tissue with it.   Micro-scaled photovoltaic devices may one day be used to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs directly to tumors, rendering chemotherapy less toxic to surrounding tissue, according to findings presented at the AVS 57th International Symposium&Exhibition in Albuquerque. Currently, chemotherapeutic drugs are piped through an IV drip into the bloodstream, where they travel and come in contact with many organs on the way to their target. Patients are affected systemically, with toxic…

Stem cell therapies hold promise as a cure for diseases but not without some risk, since faulty regulation of stem cells leads to a huge range of human diseases.   Even before birth, mistakes made by the stem cells are a major cause of congenital defects and cancer can also be caused by the body losing control of stem cell function. Guiding stem cells along the correct pathways and reversing their mistakes is one target of cancer research and scientists from Tufts University say they have identified a novel and readily modifiable signal by which an organism can control the behavior of…

A spunky late 20-something is bringing the breast cancer fight to young people with her Bright Pink organization. Although she's uncomfortable with the word "inspiring," that is just what she and her story are. This is a good story about the humans involved in the breast cancer fight, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Read the AP story here.

Is cancer a man made disease? Recently there has been considerable increase in cancers and breast cancer has been detected in 3 persons in one locality in a radius of 500 meters. One person was in the adjacent house of one locality in a span of 10 years. Could it be a contagious disease? Could the asbestos pipe lines supplying water in that locality be the cause of cancer? Pollution, excessive heat, light including fluorescent light, excessive light or any other climatic factors could be or could not be associated with cancer. The sudden spurt of cancer needs to be investigated by…

Cancer chemotherapy has been successful in delaying cancer progression but the flip side has been its side effects. Kinases have gained popularity as drug targets but achieving target specificity has been a major bottleneck in the development of anti-cancer drugs.  In fact the reason why most of the drugs are being shelved during clinical trials is because of their poor therapeutic index.  The potential benefits of alternative therapy in the treatment of cancer cannot be ruled out, though this field has not been extensively researched. A recent article by Lam and colleagues…

Imagine that a machine draws your blood, screens it for genetic mutations and chemical variations that can cause cancer, and then pops out a drug tailor-made for your DNA. The hypothetical drug would target and fix the point irregularities which have accumulated over time that can lead to the formation of tumors — and cancer. "Personalized cancer drug delivery? Depending on the approach, it could be as soon as 10 to 15 years away," says Viterbi professor Andrea Armani , an assistant professor of the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.Armani has received the…

Breast cancer affects over 10% of women in Europe, the UK and USA, making it one of the most common cancers. Large population studies such as the Women’s Health Initiative and the Million Women Study have shown that progestins, synthetic sex hormones used in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and in contraceptives, can increase the risk of breast cancers. Medical researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna have identified a key mechanism which allows these synthetic sex hormones to directly affect mammary cells. The research builds…

A new technology can make nanoscale protein measurements - which may mean understanding the effects of therapeutic agents in tumor cells and different cell populations within patients, a key step toward being able to tailor therapy for each patient. Currently, research on cancer agent activity requires patients to undergo several invasive biopsies to generate enough cells for testing.   A group of researchers have developed a highly sensitive test called the nano-immunoassay (NIA) that can make nanoscale protein measurements in cells from minimally invasive blood draws or fine-…

If you are a man aged 55 to 74 years with low baseline blood levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), you don't need further screening, says a new study in Cancer.   Aggressive investigation was instead associated with a large increase in cumulative incidence and potential overtreatment for men from 1993 to 1999. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the third leading cause of death from cancer in men in Western countries. While a man in the United State has about a one in six chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, his risk of…

Metastatic melanoma is a deadly diagnosis - you are, to be frank, screwed. Any glimmer of hope, however murky, is thus latched onto fervently. Unfortunately, cancer treatments aren't a picnic, many providing only a little extra time on earth and awful side effects. In diseases like metastatic melanoma, where the prognosis is dismal, it's easy to hype any drug that comes along. Words like "breakthrough" are tossed about the news media, which dilutes the power of the word when an actual advancement comes along.1 A new drug in clinical trials might just fit the bill, though, so I may take the…