#Scientists finally figure out the structure of a key cancer-driving enzyme It been a long time coming,
an enzyme complex known to play a crucial role in the development of several types of cancer.
which has been linked to the development of lymphoma, leukaemia, and brain tumours, plus a number of congenital diseases that affect a person growth."
"Our findings bring us one step closer to understanding the chemistry of how PRC2 functions in normal cells
and how mutations in the gene cause disease,"said one of the team, Xin Liu, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical centre.
and therefore triggering the development of cancer and disease has been practically impossible. But now, for the first time, Liu and his colleagues have reproduced the 3d atomic structure of PRC2 crystals,
using an imaging technique called x-ray crystallography. This means we can finally compare exactly how it behaves in normal and diseased cells,
researchers are looking at the potential of such drugs as a treatment for several types of lymphoma."
#New electronic sensor can detect ovarian cancer in your breath Your breath says more about you than you might think-not just how inebriated you are or
A new type of sensor that can'sniff out'traces of ovarian cancer in a patient's breath has been developed by researchers in Israel,
and painless way to screen for the disease. We've seen the idea of a breathalyser being used to detect different types of cancer before,
but what makes this new technology stand out is the amount of data that can be captured,
which are matched then up to various diseases.""Changes in metabolism that accompany a specific illness cause changes in the composition and/or concentration of VOCS in the breath,
"lead researcher Nicole Kahn from the Technion-Israel Institute of technology told Jordan Rosenfeld at Mental Floss.
Based on some initial testing, Kahn and her colleagues were able to correctly detect ovarian cancer in 82 percent of cases,
only high-risk patients are tested for ovarian cancer to reduce the chance of false positives, and seeing as most women don get symptoms until the disease is advanced quite,
it means many cases go undetected until it too late. With further research, Kahn thinks the same technique could be used to test for different types of cancer,
as well as other diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. She also says there's still room for improvement in making the sensors smaller
and more sensitive before they're ready for clinical use. Ovarian cancer currently accounts for around 3 percent of cancers among women
and with around 200,000 cases reported in the US each year, it's one of the rarer forms of the disease.
However, it causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system, and so new techniques to battle it would have a significant impact n
#Researchers create lithium-air battery that could be 10x more powerful than lithium-ion A new lithium-air battery created by researchers at the University of Cambridge points the way to the ultimate battery packs of the future,
And any parents who are concerned about the possible effects of vaccines have their hearts in the right place
when they try to seek out relevant medical information on the Internet. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware,
and now a broad study of anti-vaccination websites helps to explain why. Researchers from the Johns hopkins university Bloomberg School of Public health analysed close to 500 anti-vaccination websites
and found that they deliver a distorted mixture of pseudoscience and misinformation to parents seeking information about vaccines.
According to the researchers, more than two thirds of anti-vaccination websites present nonscientific information and other forms of misinformation as cientific evidenceto support the view that vaccines are dangerous to children,
and nearly one third of sites reinforce the idea through the use of anecdotes and stories.
Facebook pages and health sites perpetuate an alarming mixture of misinformation about vaccines and use a range of persuasive techniques to get the reader on side.
Almost two thirds of the sites suggested that vaccines cause autism, and more than 40 percent claim theye responsible for rain injury The majority present information as scientific when it doesn actually qualify for that distinction.
In addition to condemning vaccines, the sites also promote some positive behaviours, such as healthy eating (recommended by 18.5 percent of anti-vaccination sites),
and the benefits of breastfeeding (5. 5 percent) and eating organic food (5. 2 percent). The study, presented this week at the American Public health Association annual meeting in Chicago,
may help actual scientists such as doctors and health care workers better understand how to reach and communicate with parents who are concerned genuinely about any perceived risks of vaccination
(and who may be exposing themselves to potentially dangerous misinformation on these kinds of sites). he biggest global takeaway is need that we to communicate to the vaccine-hesitant parent in a way that resonates with them
and is sensitive to their concerns, said Meghan Moran, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School department of health, behaviour and society. n our review,
we saw communication for things we consider healthy, such as breastfeeding, eating organic, the types of behaviour public health officials want to encourage.
I think we can leverage these good things and reframe our communication in a way that makes sense to those parents resisting vaccines for their children. i
#Solar cooling system keeps water at 9 degrees Celsius for up to three months Maintaining food in places where high temperatures prevail,
using little energy at a low cost, it is now possible with Mexican technology, thanks to the creation of a solar cooling system designed by Susana Elvia Toledo Flores.
The prototype developed in the Research Department in Zeolites, at the Institute of Science of the Meritorious University of Puebla (BUAP), in center Mexico,
and medicine, bringing them better quality of life,""says Toledo Flores. The project was presented at the International Congress of Solar energy at Germany y
The KAHA ligation uses special types of organic molecules to form new bonds without the usual need for toxic chemical reagents.
What's more, they have demonstrated the practicality of this approach by identifying a novel molecule that blocks a key enzyme used by the hepatitis C virus."Our dream is to provide a do-it-yourself method--one that can be applied by anyone,
a farmer could identify a novel combination that treats plant infections. He adds that the next step is to determine the most efficient way to screen the thousands
#Possible progress against Parkinson's and good news for stem cell therapies Parkinson's, which affect as many 10 million people in the world,
Current treatments include medications and electrical implants in the brain which causes severe adverse effects over time
and fail to prevent disease progression. Several studies have indicated that the transplantation of embryonic stem cells improves motor functions in animal models.
However, until now, the procedure has shown to be unsafe, because of the risk of tumors upon transplantation.
the researchers tested for the first time to pre-treat undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells with mitomycin C a drug already prescribed to treat cancer.
The first one, the control group, did not receive the stem cell implant. The second one, received the implant of stem cells
which were treated not with mitomycin C and the third one received the mitomycin C treated cells.
After the injection of 50 000 untreated stem cells, the animals of the second group showed improvement in motor functions
These animals also developed intracerebral tumors. In contrast, animals receiving the treated stem cells showed improvement of Parkinson's symptoms
and survived until the end of the observation period of 12 weeks post-transplant with no tumors detected.
Four of these mice were monitored for as long as 15 months with no signs of pathology. Furthermore, the scientists have shown also that treating the stem cells with mitomycin C induced a fourfold increase in the release of dopamine after in vitro differentiation."
"This simple strategy of shortly exposing pluripotent stem cells to an anticancer drug turned the transplant safer,
by eliminating the risk of tumor formation, "says the leader of the study Stevens Rehen, Professor at UFRJ and researcher at IDOR.
and physicians to propose a clinical trial using pluripotent stem cells treated with mitomycin C prior to transplant to treat Parkinson's patients and also other neurodegenerative conditions."
"Our technique with mitomycin C may speed the proposal of clinical trials with pluripotent cells to several human diseases,
#One dollar blood test using gold nanoparticles outperforms PSA screen for prostate cancer, study suggests The simple test developed by University of Central Florida scientist Qun"Treen"Huo holds the promise of earlier detection of one of the deadliest cancers among men.
It would also reduce the number of unnecessary and invasive biopsies stemming from the less precise PSA test that's now used."
"It's fantastic, "said Dr. Inoel Rivera, a urologic oncologist at Florida Hospital Cancer Institute,
which collaborated with Huo on the recent pilot studies.""It's a simple test. It's much better than the test we have right now,
"When a cancerous tumor begins to develop, the body mobilizes to produce antibodies. Huo's test detects that immune response using gold nanoparticles about 10,000 times smaller than a freckle.
When a few drops of blood serum from a finger prick are mixed with the gold nanoparticles, certain cancer biomarkers cling to the surface of the tiny particles,
increasing their size and causing them to clump together. Among researchers, gold nanoparticles are known for their extraordinary efficiency at absorbing
whether a patient has prostate cancer and how advanced it may be. And although it uses gold,
we're hoping most people can have this test in their doctor's office. If we can catch this cancer in its early stages,
the impact is going to be big.""After lung cancer, prostate cancer is the second-leading killer cancer among men, with more than 240,000 new diagnoses and 28,000 deaths every year.
The most commonly used screening tool is the PSA, but it produces so many false-positive results--leading to painful biopsies
and extreme treatments--that one of its discoverers recently called it"hardly more effective than a coin toss."
D c. Huo's team is pursuing more extensive clinical validation studies with Florida Hospital and others,
including the VA Medical center Orlando. She hopes to complete major clinical trials and see the test being used by physicians in two to three years.
Huo also is researching her technique's effectiveness as a screening tool for other tumors."
"Potentially, we could have a universal screening test for cancer, "she said.""Our vision is to develop an array of blood tests for early detection and diagnosis of all major cancer types,
and these blood tests are all based on the same technique and same procedure.""Huo co-founded Nano Discovery Inc.,a startup company headquartered in a UCF Business Incubator,
The company manufacturers a test device specifically for medical research and diagnostic purposes s
#Engineers gain control of gene activity by synthetically creating key component of epigenome The new technology allows researchers to turn on specific gene promoters
or the risk for genetic disease and it could provide a new avenue for gene therapies and guiding stem cell differentiation.
"Some genetic diseases are straightforward --if you have a mutation within a particular gene, then you have said the disease
Isaac Hilton, postdoctoral fellow in the Gersbach Lab and first author of the study.""But many diseases, like cancer, cardiovascular disease or neurodegenerative conditions, have a much more complex genetic component.
Many different variations in the genome sequence can affect your risk of disease, and this genetic variation can occur in these enhancers that Tim has identified,
where they can change the levels of gene expression. With this technology, we can explore what exactly it is that they're doing
and how it relates to disease or response to drug therapies.""Gersbach added, "Not only can you start to answer those questions,
enabling a path to a more sustainable energy landscape without the need of energy-intensive, expensive and sometimes toxic metal-based compounds,
'Office inkjet printer could produce simple tool to identify infectious disease, food contaminants Consumers are one step closer to benefiting from packaging that could give simple text warnings
when food is contaminated with deadly pathogens like E coli and Salmonella, and patients could soon receive real-time diagnoses of infections such as C. difficile right in their doctors'offices,
saving critical time and trips to the lab. Researchers at Mcmaster University have developed a new way to print paper biosensors,
simplifying the diagnosis of many bacterial and respiratory infections. The new platform is the latest in a progression of paper-based screening technologies
simple answer in the form of letters and symbols that appear on the test paper to indicate the presence of infection or contamination in people, food or the environment."
or in the doctor's office,"says John Brennan, director of Mcmaster's Biointerfaces Institute,
For patients suspected of having infectious diseases like C. diff, this technology allows doctors to quickly
and simply diagnose their illnesses, saving time and expediting what could be lifesaving treatments. This method can be extended to virtually any compound,
when a specific disease biomarker is present--is enough to ensure it remains immobilized and therefore stable.
which would include rapid detection of cancer or monitoring toxins in the water supply,"says Brennan."
#Alternating antibiotics could make resistant bacteria beatable Researchers from the University of Exeter has shown that the use of'sequential treatments'--using alternating doses of antibiotics--might offer effective treatment against bacterial infection.
The researchers used a test-tube model of a bacterial infection to show that, even in bacteria that already harbour drug resistance genes,
although extensive further work is needed now to will be needed before sequential treatments make it in to the clinic,
#Biologists identify brain tumor weakness The study, led by researchers from the Whitehead Institute and MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, found that a subset of glioblastoma tumor cells is dependent on a particular enzyme that breaks down the amino acid glycine.
Without this enzyme, toxic metabolic byproducts build up inside the tumor cells, and they die. Blocking this enzyme in glioblastoma cells could offer a new way to combat such tumors,
says Dohoon Kim, a postdoc at the Whitehead Institute and lead author of the study,
which appears in the April 8 online edition of Nature. David Sabatini a professor of biology at MIT and member of the Whitehead Institute, is the paper's senior author.
along with members of his lab. GLDC caught the researchers'attention as they investigated diseases known as"inborn errors of metabolism,
Such patients must avoid eating phenylalanine to prevent problems such as intellectual disability and seizures. Loss of GLDC produces a disorder called nonketotic hyperglycinemia,
which causes glycine to build up in the brain and can lead to severe mental retardation. GLDC is also often overactive in certain cells of glioblastoma,
the most common and most aggressive type of brain tumor found in humans. The researchers found that GLDC,
These regions are often found at the center of tumors, which are inaccessible to blood vessels.
which makes them better suited to survive in the ischemic tumor microenvironment, "Kim says. However, this highly active SHMT2 also produces a glut of glycine,
Without GLDC, glycine enters a different metabolic pathway that generates toxic products that accumulate and kill the cell.
#Study on new treatment for prostate cancer Published in The british Journal of Cancer (BJC), the study is the first time low temperature plasmas (LTPS) have been applied on cells grown directly from patient tissue samples.
It is the result of a unique collaboration between the York Plasma Institute in the Department of physics and the Cancer Research Unit (CRU) in York Department of biology.
and prostate cancer tissue cells from a single patient, the study allowed for direct comparison of the effectiveness of the treatment.
Scientists discovered that LTPS may be a potential option for treatment of patients with organ confined prostate cancer
and a viable, more cost-effective alternative to current radiotherapy and photodynamic therapy (PDT) treatments.
when using LTP treatment is different from other therapies. The active agents in the LTP break up DNA
This is different to some current therapies which cause apoptosis, where cells are prompted to die through natural mechanisms that can result in treatment resistance.
espite continual improvement and refinement, long term treatment for prostate cancer is recognised still as inadequate. In the case of early stage organ confined tumours, patients may be treated with a focal therapy, for example cryotherapy, photodynamic therapy,
or radiotherapy. owever, around a third of patients will experience recurrence of their disease following radiotherapy.
This may be due to the inherent radio-resistance of a small fraction of the tumour the cancer stem-like cells.
Furthermore, numerous side effects are experienced often following treatment. hrough this research we have found that LTPS induce high levels of DNA damage
we have presented the first experimental evidence promoting the potential of LTP as a future focal cancer therapy treatment for patients with early stage prostate cancer.
LTP could be used to treat cancer patients within 10-15 years 1
#Researchers deliver large particles into cells at high speed The researchers created a highly efficient automated tool that delivers nanoparticles, enzymes, antibodies, bacteria and other"large-sized"cargo into mammalian cells at the rate
of 100,000 cells per minute--significantly faster than current technology, which works at about one cell per minute.
The new device, called a biophotonic laser-assisted surgery tool, or BLAST, is a silicon chip with an array of micrometer-wide holes,
and help researchers study diseases caused by mutant MITOCHONDRIAL DNA. It also could help scientists dissect the function of genes involved in the lifecycle of pathogens that invade the cell
and understand the cell's defense mechanisms against them.""Now it doesn't matter the size
"The new information learned from these types of studies could assist in identifying pathogen targets for drug development,
or provide fundamental insight on how the pathogen-host interaction enables a productive infection or effective cellular response to occur,
"said Dr. Michael Teitell, chief of the division of pediatric and developmental pathology, and a co-author of the paper.
Dr. Daniel Clemens, adjunct professor of medicine; Bai-Yu Lee, an assistant researcher; Ximiao Wen, a graduate student in mechanical engineering;
and Dr. Marcus Horwitz, professor of medicine and of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. The research was supported by a University of California Discovery Biotechnology Award, the National institutes of health, Nanocav and the National Science Foundation n
#Breakthrough finds molecules that block previously'undruggable'protein tied to cancer The findings, which could lead to a new class of cancer drugs,
thus blocking Hur function as a tumor-promoting protein, "said Liang Xu, associate professor of molecular biosciences and corresponding author of the paper.
The results hold promise for treating a broad array of cancers in people. The researcher said Hur has been detected at high levels in almost every type of cancer tested,
including cancers of the colon, prostate, breast, brain, ovaries, pancreas and lung.""Hur inhibitors may be useful for many types of cancer,
"Xu said.""Since Hur is involved in many stem cell pathways, we expect Hur inhibitors will be active in inhibiting'cancer stem cells,
'or the seeds of cancer, which have been a current focus in the cancer drug discovery field."
"Hur has been studied for many years, but until now no direct Hur inhibitors have been discovered, according to Xu.""The initial compounds reported in this paper can be optimized further
and developed as a whole new class of cancer therapy, especially for cancer stem cells, "he said."
"The success of our study provides a first proof-of-principle that Hur is druggable,
"A cancer-causing gene, or oncogene, makes RNA, which then makes an oncoprotein that causes cancer
or makes cancer cells hard to kill, or both,"Xu said.""This is the problem we're trying to overcome with precision medicine."
"The scientist said the Hur-RNA binding site is like a long, narrow groove, not a well-defined pocket seen in other druggable proteins targeted by many current cancer therapies."
"Hur tightly binds to RNA like a hand, "Xu said.""The Hur protein grabs the'rope
and involved the collaboration of chemists, cancer biologists, computer modeling experts, biochemists and biophysicists at KU--notably the labs of Xu, Jeffrey Aub in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Jon Tunge in the Department of chemistry.
For Xu, the findings are reflective of a personal commitment to improving odds for people diagnosed with cancer
the second-largest killer in the U s. after heart disease.""Trained as medical doctor and Ph d.,with both a grandfather and an uncle who died of cancer,
I devoted my career to cancer research and drug discovery--aiming to translate discovery in the lab into clinical therapy,
to help cancer patients and their families, "he said.""We hope to find a better therapy--and eventually a cure--for cancer
#Study revises theory of how PTEN, a critical tumor suppressor, shuts off growth signals Today,
scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) publish new evidence explaining precisely how the protein encoded by PTEN (called PTEN) works--specifically,
how it is recruited to particular locations in our cells where pro-growth signals need to be shut off.
The new evidence, assembled by a team led by CSHL Associate professor Lloyd Trotman, contradicts a long-held assumption about PTEN function,
and could help scientists design more effective drugs to counteract cancer's hallmark trait, uncontrolled cellular growth."
"A whole generation of cancer investigators, including me, has been taught that PTEN performs its crucial role at the plasma membrane,
And in view of PTEN's critical role as a tumor suppressor, it's also important that the process we uncovered is controlled a one,
--or decoded--the genes of patients with Neuromuscular Disease (NMD) and was then able to identify the genetic source,
"In all six cases of myopathy, or muscle weakness, these children had undergone extensive, expensive and invasive testing--often over many years--without a successful diagnosis,
until they enrolled in our study, "said Dr. Lisa Baumbach-Reardon, an Associate professor of TGEN's Integrated Cancer Genomics Division and the study's senior author.
This is a prime example of the type of"personalized medicine"TGEN uses to zero in on diagnoses for patients,
and to help their physicians find the best possible treatments.""Our results demonstrate the diagnostic value of a comprehensive approach to genetic sequencing,
or disease-causing, genetic variants with a single, timely, affordable test.""In one of the six cases, TGEN researchers found a unique disease-causing variant,
or mutation, in the CACNA1S gene for a child with severe muscle weakness in addition to ophthalmoplegia,
"To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of severe congenital myopathy with ophthalmoplegia resulting from pathogenic variants in CACNA1S,
Learning the specific genetic cause of symptoms is a key step in finding new therapeutic drugs that could treat the patient's disease.
In another closely related case, TGEN's genetic testing found a pathogenic variant in the RYR1 gene in a case of calcium channel myopathy.
Five of the six cases involved patients under the care of Dr. Saunder Bernes, a neurologist at Barrow neurological institute at Phoenix Children's Hospital.
"Without this type of deep genetic analysis, we might never have discovered the source of each of these children's disease,
"said Dr. Bernes, whose young patients'previous tests included muscle biopsies, EMG, MRI, EKG and limited gene sequencing."
"In three of the six cases, the children had Collagen 6 myopathies, or weaknesses. Collagen is essential to holding together muscles, tendons, skin, cartilage and the disks between vertebras.
or disease-causing mutation, in the COL6A3 gene, or likely pathogenic variants in the COL6A6 gene.
In still another case, TGEN testing identified the genetic culprit of the child's muscle weakness as a pathogenic EMD variant associated with Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy.
"Reporting these cases raises awareness about how often each child with muscle disease is unique,
requiring personalized medical treatment beginning with genetic diagnosis through sequencing like we perform at TGEN.""Dr. Hunter said."
It also reveals clues for enriching desirable bacteria in populations at risk of intestinal diseases--such as preemies.
The research may have applications in a clinical setting for protecting premature infants from a range of intestinal diseases including necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC),
It also reveals clues for enriching desirable bacteria in populations at risk of intestinal diseases--such as preemies."
The early establishment of bifidobacteria has been shown to be associated with improved immune response to vaccines, development of the infants'immature immune system,
and protection against pathogens. Bifidobacterium are known to consume the 2'-fucosylated glycans (sugars) found in the breast milk of women with the fucosyltransferase 2 mammary gene.
She recently received a grant from the Pediatric Medical device Consortium at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to research this possibility i
what type of influenza it is, and it can differentiate between a human strain and a bird strain,"said Neethirajan."
#Breakthrough in cancer research: Cancer-suppressing proteins The research was conducted in the laboratory of Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover, of the Technion Rappaport Faculty of medicine.
The team was led by research associate Dr. Yelena Kravtsova-Ivantsiv and included additional research students and colleagues,
as well as physicians from the Rambam, Carmel and Hadassah Medical centers, who are studying tumors and their treatment. kpc1 an important and vital pathway in the life of the cell,
-B has been identified as a link between inflammation and cancer. The hypothesis of the connection between inflammatory processes and cancer was suggested first in 1863 by German pathologist Rudolph Virchow,
and has been confirmed over the years in a long series of studies. Ever since the discovery (nearly 30 years ago) of NF?
It is involved in tumors of various organs (prostate, breast, lung, head and neck, large intestine, brain, etc.
which are vital to tumor growth; and increased resistance of cancerous cells to irradiation and chemotherapy.
The current research was conducted on models of human tumors grown in mice as well as on samples of human tumors,
and a strong connection was discovered between the suppression of malignancy and the level of the two proteins,
clearly indicating that the increased presence of KPC1 and/or p50 in the tissue can protect it from cancerous tumors.
Professor Ciechanover, who is also the president of the Israel Cancer Society, notes that many more years are required"to establish the research
and gain a solid understanding of the mechanisms behind the suppression of the tumors. The development of a drug based on this discovery is a possibility,
although not a certainty, and the road to such a drug is long and far from simple
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011