Cancer Research

Cellular damage due to stress is an important factor in aging processes. It is therefore strange that starving, which is stressful, decelerates aging processes and extends the lifespan of organisms. Proteins from the sirtuin family contribute to this mechanism but the exact function of the seven members of the sirtuin family in mammals has not yet been clarified. Results obtained in studies performed by protein research scientists in Bochum and Dortmund under the auspices of Assistant Professor Dr. Clemens Steegborn (Institute for Physiological Chemistry at RUB) have supplied first insights…

In just 3 years of community activism that rivals Sarah Palin's political climb, Teens for Safe Cosmetics (TFSC) from Marin County, California has waged a national campaign to educate and inspire elimination and disuse of chemical toxins and environmental pollutants for healthier living. The passionate crusade recently earned two representatives from TFSC a meeting with Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Peace Jam Global Call to Action Conference in Los Angeles. Campaign members, Kate Smith and Emily Rose, were among 3,000 youths from around the world assembled to hear wisdom…

In today’s world, advances in science and medicine happen almost daily. Few of those discoveries prove to be a revolution in current scientific thought. This is one of those breakthroughs. Recently, the Nobel Committee announced that it would award the Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology to German professor Harald zur Hausen, who discovered the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) was the cause of cervical cancer. According to the Committee, his discovery “went against current dogma,” when in the 70s and 80s he strove to prove that the papillomaviruses were the cause of cervical cancers. “He thus laid…

Caffeine consumption does not appear to be associated with overall breast cancer risk, according to a report in the October 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, there is a possibility of increased risk for women with benign breast disease or for tumors that are hormone-receptor negative or larger than 2 centimeters. Caffeine is probably the most commonly consumed drug worldwide, present in coffee, tea, chocolate and some medications, according to background information in the article. It was hypothesized that caffeine may increase the risk of…

Scientists have found a new possible explanation for why people who eat more fruit and vegetables may gain protection against the spread of cancers; a fragment released from pectin, found in all fruits and vegetables, that binds to and may inhibit galectin 3 (Gal3), a protein that plays a role in all stages of cancer progression. Population studies such as EPIC, the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer, identified a strong link between eating lots of fibre and a lower risk of cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. But exactly how fibre exerts a protective effect is unknown. Pectin is…

If there’s one halfway healthy thing that most people do, it’s take a multivitamin pill. My word, taking a little pill with decent amounts of the essential micronutrients and minerals keeps you from getting scurvy, right? Right. Most people don’t eat sufficient fruits and vegetables. Most people don’t get enough vitamin C over the course of a week to keep them from getting low-grade scurvy, unless you’re one of the smart few who toss back an orange juice shot in the morning. (Just for the record, I imbibe espresso shooters in the morning. I’m not getting up on my high elliptical strider and…

“Fluoridation of drinking water is scientifically untenable, and should not be part of a public health initiative or program,” says the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) in a new published statement. CAPE is Canada’s leading voice on environmental health issues. Against a backdrop of intense opposition to the fluoridation of public drinking water in several communities in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, CAPE asserts: A) fluoridation is unlikely to be the cause of the cavity decline in Europe and North America, B) the potential for fluoride’s adverse effects is real,…

A new improved gene therapy can be the first treatment for Machado-Joseph disease as  Portuguese, Swiss and French researchers show, for the first time, that is possible to inhibit in a living organism the mutated copies of a gene, without affecting any existing normal copies of the same gene. The research, to appear in the 8th of October edition of the journal PLoS One, describes how scientists successfully used the approach in rats to reverse the symptoms of Machado Joseph Disease (MJD), an untreatable and potentially fatal neurodegenerative disease.  If these results can be…

GENEVA, Switzerland, October 10 /PRNewswire/ -- - Ranked Number 7 out of top 20 Employers Across Life Sciences Industry GENEVA, Switzerland, October 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, announced today that it has been named by Science magazine as a top employer in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, ranking number 7 out of the top 20 employers across the life sciences. "We are honored that the scientific community has recognized Merck Serono as a leading place to work," said Bernhard Kirschbaum, Executive Vice President, Research, Merck…

PRINCETON, New Jersey, October 9 /PRNewswire/ -- BioWa, Inc. announced today that it has entered into a license agreement with CSL Limited, providing CSL with access to BioWa's POTELLIGENT(R) Technology platform for the research and development of antibody therapeutics with enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). "We are very pleased to have this opportunity to work with CSL, our first Australian partner," said Dr. Masamichi Koike, President and CEO of BioWa. "We believe that CSL's strength in biologics and significant presence in Australia and many other countries will…