Research

If cancer were easy, every cell would do it

A new Scientific Reports paper puts an evolutionary twist on a classic question. Instead of asking why we get cancer, Leonardo Oña of Osnabrück University and Michael Lachmann of the Santa Fe Institute use signaling theory to explore how our bodies have evolved to keep us from getting more cancer.

Poliovirus therapy shows potential as cancer vaccine in lab studies

A modified form of poliovirus, pioneered at Duke Cancer Institute as a therapy for glioblastoma brain tumors, appears in laboratory studies to also have applicability for pediatric brain tumors when used as part of a cancer vaccine. In preclinical studies using mice and human cancer cells, an injection of the modified poliovirus vector instigated an immune response that homed in on mutated cancer cells that predominate in diffuse midline glioma (DMG) tumors. The cancer strikes children and is universally deadly.

Human Body-on-Chip platform enables in vitro prediction of drug behaviors in humans

Drug development is an extremely arduous and costly process, and failure rates in clinical trials that test new drugs for their safety and efficacy in humans remain very high. According to current estimates, only 13.8% of all tested drugs demonstrate ultimate clinical success and obtain approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A single number helps Stanford data scientists find most dangerous cancer cells

Biomedical data scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that the number of genes a cell uses to make RNA is a reliable indicator of how developed the cell is, a finding that could make it easier to target cancer-causing genes. Cells that initiate cancer are thought to be stem cells, which are hard-to-find cells that can reproduce themselves and develop, or

Cardiac and visual degeneration arrested by a food supplement

Our genome consists of 20,000 genes, all of which may be capable of triggering disease. It is estimated that there are 7,000 unknown genes that cause recessive genetic diseases resulting from mutations in two copies of a gene that have been inherited from each parent. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have recently identified 45 new genes that cause blindness or cognitive problems.

Dozens of non-oncology drugs can kill cancer cells

Drugs for diabetes, inflammation, alcoholism - and even for treating arthritis in dogs - can also kill cancer cells in the lab, according to a study by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The researchers systematically analyzed thousands of already developed drug compounds and found nearly 50 that have previously unrecognized anti-cancer activity.

B cells linked to effective cancer immunotherapy

Cancer patients responded better to immunotherapy and had a better prognosis if their melanoma tumours contained specific clusters of B cells, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden. The study is published in Nature.

Research & Development

If cancer were easy, every cell would do it

Poliovirus therapy shows potential as cancer vaccine in lab studies

Human Body-on-Chip platform enables in vitro prediction of drug behaviors in humans

A single number helps Stanford data scientists find most dangerous cancer cells

Cardiac and visual degeneration arrested by a food supplement

Dozens of non-oncology drugs can kill cancer cells

B cells linked to effective cancer immunotherapy

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