Cancer Research

MANCHESTER, England, February 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Epistem plc (LSE:EHP) announced today that it had successfully completed a preliminary study with AstraZeneca for the use of its proprietary, minimally invasive plucked human hair biomarker technology to help steer oncology drug development. The technology includes analysing gene expression change in RNA extracted from the bulb of cells located at the base of a single human plucked hair. Changes in gene expression can be used to identify biomarkers ('core gene sets') to aid decision-making in the drug development process. The companies have…

PLANEGG-MARTINSRIED, Germany, February 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Martinsried drug discovery and development company 4SC AG (Frankfurt, Prime Standard: VSC) and the Wuppertal-based AiCuris GmbH & Co KG today announced that they have entered into a research collaboration. The long-term goal of this collaboration is to jointly set-up a product pipeline with innovative, anti-infective drug candidates. It has been agreed in a first step that 4SC AG will, within the context of its collaboration business segment, provide extensive resources from its medicinal chemistry to AiCuris, for research…

A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and other citrus fruits may be able to block the secretion of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from infected cells, a process required to maintain chronic infection. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) report that HCV is bound to very low-density lipoprotein (vLDL, a so-called “bad” cholesterol) when it is secreted from liver cells and that the viral secretion required to pass infection to other cells may be blocked by the common flavonoid naringenin. If the results of this study…

A new plan to further reduce, refine and replace the use of animals in research and regulatory testing, commonly referred to as the 3Rs, was unveiled today by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM). Traditionally, chemicals, consumer products, medical devices and new drugs are tested on animals to predict toxicity on humans, but scientists in ICCVAM are working to promote the development and validation of alternative test methods. Alternative test methods are those that accomplish one or more of the 3Rs; of reducing the number of animals used…

VEENENDAAL, The Netherlands, February 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Nucletron BV and clinicians at The Cancer Centre, Northern Ireland, proudly report the first IMRT clinical treatment within the Conventional or Hypofractionated High-Dose Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer (CHHiP) clinical trial utilizing Nucletron's Oncentra(R) MasterPlan. CHHiP, part of the NCRN/NCRI portfolio of cancer trials and sponsored by the Institute of Cancer Research, is a Phase III national, multi-centre, randomized trial for the treatment of prostate cancer using external beam radiotherapy. The IMRT…

CALGARY, Canada, February 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncolytics Biotech Inc. (TSX: ONC, NASDAQ: ONCY) ('Oncolytics') reported today that Dr. Kevin Harrington and his research group at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, U.K. published the results of their work testing combination treatment schedules of reovirus and radiation in human and murine tumour cells in vitro and in vivo. The paper, entitled "Enhanced In vitro and In vivo Cytotoxicity of Combined Reovirus and Radiotherapy" appears online in the February 1, 2008 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. The effect of different schedules of…

Continued from Part 4: I interviewed Gary Taubes by phone a few weeks ago, shortly after he gave a talk about the main ideas of his new book — Good Calories, Bad Calories — at UC Berkeley. The interview lasted about 2 hours. This is part 5. SETH: Well, I think your book is a great book, and I don’t think its effect is limited to how many reviews it gets. What books do you think your book resembles? I think of it as a book showing that authorities can be seriously wrong, but what do you think? GARY TAUBES: You know, I don’t know, actually. I can’t answer that question without sounding like a…

Gout, or metabolic arthritis, was considered by Hippocrates “the disease of kings” because only wealthy people with rich diets got it. This was true until the early 20th century when cases went down because of improved knowledge about it. But in the last 40 years, cases have gone up, mostly because now everyone can afford rich and sugar-filled treats. Gout affects 3 times as many men as women and an estimated 5.1 million people in the United States live with it. It is caused by excess uric acid in the blood (hyperuricaemia) which leads to uric acid crystals collecting around the joints.…

A new study may explain why women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene face up to an 85 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer; researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that BRCA1 plays a role in regulating breast stem cells, the small number of cells that might develop into cancers. The study, in mice and in human breast cancer cells, found that BRCA1 is involved in the stem cells differentiating into other breast tissue cells. When BRCA1 is missing, the stem cells accumulate unregulated and develop into cancer. “Our data suggest that an important reason…

PRINCETON, New Jersey, January 31 /PRNewswire/ -- - Laureate to Manufacture ARIUS' Product Candidate Trop-2 Signal Transduction Antibody Laureate Pharma, Inc., a full-service biopharmaceutical development and protein production company, today announced that it has entered into a cGMP contract manufacturing agreement with ARIUS Research, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing the next wave of antibody therapeutics to treat cancer and other diseases, for its Trop-2 Signal Transduction Antibody Program. Laureate will produce ARIUS' IgG1 humanized antibody under the…