Cancer Research

With a technology transfer agreement announced today, the first compact proton therapy system – one that would fit in any major cancer center and cost a fifth as much as a full-scale machine – is one step closer to reality. Proton therapy is considered the most advanced form of radiation therapy available, but size and cost have limited the technology’s use to only six cancer centers nationwide. Compact proton radiotherapy treatment concept Illustration by Steven Hawkins The result of defense-related research, the compact system was developed by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National…

Using a new computational method called NetworKIN, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital, MIT and EMBL can now use biological networks to better identify relationships between molecules, including regulation of protein networks that will ultimately help to target human disease. “Our method works a bit like getting a recommendation from Amazon,” says Dr. Peer Bork, group leader at EMBL. “The fact that certain books have been bought by the same customers tells you that they have something in common. In the same way biological networks tell us about shared features between different proteins.…

A new Mayo Clinic study provides evidence that DNA variations largely explain why some persons get Parkinson’s disease while others don’t, and even predict with great accuracy at what age people might develop their first symptoms. “This represents a major paradigm shift from single gene studies to genomic pathway studies of complex diseases,” says Demetrius Maraganore, M.D., the Mayo Clinic neurologist and Parkinson’s disease specialist who led the study. Goodness-of-Fit of Final Model Using Axon Guidance Genes to Predict Susceptibility to PD The authors say traditional genetic studies have…

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have successfully cultured human hematopoietic stem cells from fat tissue, suggesting another important source of cells for patients undergoing radiation therapy for blood cancers. Adipose tissue has the ability to rapidly expand or contract in accordance with nutritional constraints. In so doing, it requires rapid adjustment in its blood supply and supporting connective tissue, or stroma. Based on previous reports that the “stromal vascular” fraction of adipose tissue contains stem cells that give rise to pericytes — cells surrounding small blood…

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have shown that hormone therapy can extend life in ovarian cancer patients, giving women a new alternative to chemotherapy. The study has proved for the first time that the targeted use of an anti-oestrogen drug could prolong the life of some patients by up to three years, and delay the use of chemotherapy in others. Letrozole hormone therapy – already used with great success in the treatment of breast tumours - attacks cancer by turning off its oestrogen supply. But scientists now believe that in those ovarian cancers which are highly sensitive to…

Genome-wide association studies (GWAs) have received a lot of media attention in the last several months as various research groups have released over a half-dozen such studies, all focused on some of the most widespread Western diseases, including heart disease, type II diabetes, and breast cancer. (See here, here, and here for some examples.) These studies have the potential to substantially change how we understand, diagnose and treat these diseases, and they possibly signal the near-arrival of at least some of the long-promised health benefits of the Human Genome Project, although new…

Scientists at UC San Diego have solved the genomic puzzle of an organism discovered in the oceans with potential for producing compounds showing promise in treating diseases such as cancer. Daniel Udwary and Bradley Moore joined colleagues at Scripps and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Joint Genome Institute in successfully sequencing the genome of Salinispora tropica. The decoding opens the door to a range of possibilities for isolating and adapting potent molecules the marine organism naturally employs in the ocean environment for chemical defense, scavenging for nutrients and…

A new therapy to re-activate silenced genes in patients who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases or stroke is being developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Cornell University. During and after a stroke, certain cellular events take place that lead to the death of brain cells. Compounds that inhibit a group of enzymes called histone deacetylases can modulate gene expression, and in some cases produce cellular proteins that are actually neuroprotective -- they are able to block cell death. "For the first time, we show which one of the 11 histone deacetylase…

A team of researchers led by University of Virginia Health System geneticists has uncovered a major secret in the mystery of how the DNA helix replicates itself time after time. It turns out that it is not just the sequence of the bases (building blocks) in the DNA, but also how loosely or tightly the chromatin (the material that makes up chromosomes) is packed at different points of the chromosome that is critical. Where chromatin is packed more loosely, the genes are replicated earlier than other genes and are expressed at high levels. Where chromatin is dense, these genes are replicated…

When the activity of individual genes it is longer required, there are two main mechanisms responsible for the “switching off”, mainly DNA methylation and the Polycomb protein complex. Sometimes, these mechanisms lose their efficiency and some of the genes that should be “switched off” remain active. This, in turn, could lead to uncontrolled cellular proliferation, and tumorigenesis. These mechanisms, present both in lower organisms as well as in mammals, have always been thought to be separated and independent. The work carried out by researchers of the Differentiation and Cancer Programme…