whether plexin B2 and the semaphorins also play a role in the repair of other organisms and in diseases such as cancer
#Molecular spies to fight cancer Tracking the tumor: PNA-antibodies detect initially the diseased cells (red)
and accumulate at the tumor site. Afterwards the radioactively labeled probes (blue) selectively bind to them by specific base pairing.
thus to visualize the tumor. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), in cooperation with colleagues at the University of Zurich and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, have tested for the first time successfully a new tumor diagnosis method under near-real conditions.
The new method first sends out an antibody as a pyto detect the diseased cells and then binds to them.
The scientists could then clearly visualize the tumor by utilizing a tomographic method. This procedure could improve cancer treatment in the future by using internal radiation.
The human immune system forms antibodies that protect the body from pathogens. Antibodies can also, however, be produced in a laboratory to precisely bind to tumor cells.
They are used in cancer research to detect and fight malignant tumors. For example, antibodies can serve as transport vehicles for radionuclides, with
which the affected regions can be visualized or can even be damaged. Until recently, a stumbling block has been their large molecular mass. his causes them to circulate in the body for too long before they reach the diseased cells
explains Dr Holger Stephan from the Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research at HZDR. his is a disadvantage
because organs that are affected not by the disease are exposed to radiation. It also makes the exact localization of the tumor in the body more difficult
because the resulting images are less sharp. ogether with colleagues at the University of Zurich and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
to scout out the enemy the tumor cells. The piesthen share their position with their troops,
In various types of tumors, there is an increase in this molecule formation or it might be found in a mutated form,
the scientists first injected the PNA-EGFR antibody into tumor-bearing mice and gave this pytime to accumulate at the tumor site.
They then administered the PNA counterpart, labeled with the radioactive substance technetium-99m. mages we took using single photon emission computed tomography show that both the antibody
The tumor could thus be visualized clearly within a short period of time. urthermore, the radioactively labeled probes had disappeared already from the bloodstream after sixty minutes,
and their matching PNA counterparts can be used in diagnosing tumors in humans. ur results however show that the PNAS we tested are suitable candidates for further preclinical studies, Stephan sums up.
it could also be used to transport therapeutically effective radioactive substances to the tumor in order to irradiate it from within
, cancer or infections), or to silence it when it mistakenly attacks the body itself (e g.,
#Real-time data for cancer therapy In the battle against cancer, which kills nearly 8 million people worldwide each year,
Magnetic resonance imaging and other scanning technologies can indicate the size of a tumor, while the most detailed information about how well a treatment is working comes from pathologistsexaminations of tissue taken in biopsies.
Yet these methods offer only snapshots of tumor response and the invasive nature of biopsies makes them a risky procedure that clinicians try to minimize.
Now, researchers at MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research are closing that information gap by developing a tiny biochemical sensor that can be implanted in cancerous tissue during the initial biopsy.
Making cancer treatments more targeted and precise would boost their efficacy while reducing patientsexposure to serious side effects. e wanted to make a device that would give us a chemical signal about what happening in the tumor,
says Michael Cima, the David H. Koch (1962) Professor in Engineering in the Department of Materials science and engineering and a Koch Institute investigator who oversaw the sensor development. ather than waiting months to see
if the tumor is shrinking, you could get an early read to see if youe moving in the right direction.
on-demand data concerning two biomarkers linked to a tumor response to treatment: ph and dissolved oxygen.
you can see the response chemically before you see a tumor actually shrink, Cima says.
and the inflammation will make the tumor appear to be growing, even while the therapy is effective.
since tumors thrive in low-oxygen (hypoxic) conditions. t turns out that the more hypoxic the tumor is,
could let you see how hypoxia was changing in the tumor, so you could adjust the radiation accordingly.
so we can use them to monitor tumor response, Cima says. e did a little bit of that in these experiments,
While the primary application of these sensors would be cancer care, Cima is also eager to collaborate with researchers in other fields, such as environmental science. or example,
#Researchers discover cancer markers may be visible early during human development Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have uncovered a link between the genomes of cells originating in the neural crest
and development of tumors a discovery that could lead to new ways to diagnose and treat cancer.
The new finding, recently published in Oncotarget, resolves why some cancer types share genomic and clinical features.
The discovery may also lead to new ways to diagnose and treat brain cancer, such as gliomas, medulloblastomas, and neuroblastomas;
and skin cancer, known as melanoma. More than 22,000 new cases of brain cancer and more than 73,000 new cases of skin cancer and were expected to arise in Americans in 2015, according to the National Cancer Institute.
To reveal when cancer-causing genomic changes occur, a research group led by Harold kipgarner, a professor in the departments of biological science, computer science,
and basic science at Virginia Tech Carilion Medical school, analyzed an often ignored part of the human genome repetitive DNA sequences referred to as microsatellites.
More than 1 million microsatellites exist in the human genome including in neural crest tissues, a thin layer of cells within an embryo that contains genetic instructions to build hundreds of cell types, from neurons to adrenal cells.
Neurological tumors, for example, may arise from glial cells that develop from the crest. Researchers with the institute Medical Informatics Systems division say cancer types can be found
or predicted from specific markers within these repetitive sequences, known as cancer-associated microsatellite loci, or CAML.
Long considered unk DNAOR ark matterwithin the genome because their function was unclear microsatellites are known for their role in certain diseases such as Fragile X and Huntington disease.
Garner group has shown that these regions can be informative about diseases ranging from cancer to autism spectrum disorder.
With more study, researchers believe interrelated hereditary and genetic traits of certain cancers can be traced to their common origin at the neural crest,
leading to potentially better therapies and easier tumor identification. The findings have been licensed to Genomeon, a company co-founded by Garner to develop new ways to assess cancer risk,
create diagnostics, and explore potential drug targets to help cancer patients p
#How chronic inflammation can lead to cancer Chronic inflammation caused by disease or exposure to dangerous chemicals has long been linked to cancer,
but exactly how this process takes place has remained unclear. Now, a precise mechanism by which chronic inflammation can lead to cancer has been uncovered by researchers at MIT a development that could lead to improved targets for preventing future tumors.
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers unveil how one of a battery of chemical warfare agents used by the immune system to fight off infection can itself create DNA mutations that lead to cancer.
As many as one in five cancers are believed to be caused or promoted by inflammation. These include mesothelioma,
a type of lung cancer caused by inflammation following chronic exposure to asbestos, and colon cancer in people with a history of inflammatory bowel disease, says Bogdan Fedeles,
a research associate in the Department of Biological engineering at MIT, and the paper lead author.
Innate immune response Inflammation is part of the body innate response to invading pathogens or potentially harmful irritants.
The immune system attacks the invader with a number of reactive molecules designed to neutralize it,
are the kind of lesions that would initiate cancer, he adds. DNA sequencing of a developing gastrointestinal tumor revealed two types of mutation:
cytosine (C) bases changing to thymine (T) bases, and adenine (A) bases changing to guanine (G) bases.
he explains. his scenario would best explain the work of James Fox and his MIT colleagues on gastrointestinal cancer.
or patterns of DNA mutations, associated with cancerous tumors. e believe that in the context of inflammation-induced damage of DNA,
says the paper provides a novel mechanistic link between chronic inflammation and cancer development. ith a combination of biochemical,
a type of mutation that is frequently observed in human cancers, Wang says. Studies of tissue samples of patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease have found significant levels of 5clc,
who was honored with the prestigious Benjamin F. Trump award at the 2015 Aspen Cancer Conference for the research r
Moreover, the discovery paves the way for further studies on the significance of caveolae for cancer
which means that melanoma is identified in all cases where it is ruled present, and out in 90.9%of cases where it is not. rofessor Marco Rossi of Pisa University said:
kin malignant melanoma is a particularly aggressive cancer associated with quick blood vessel growth which means early diagnosis is vital for a good prognosis.
and demonstrate for opioid pain relievers can be adapted to produce many plant-derived compounds to fight cancers,
#Newly discovered cells regenerate liver tissue without forming tumors Hybrid hepatocytes proliferate and replenish liver mass after chronic liver injuries in micehybrid hepatocytes proliferate
and show that they are able to regenerate liver tissue without giving rise to cancer.
ipscs carry a high risk of giving rise to tumors. To test the safety of hybrid hepatocytes,
Karin team examined three different mouse models of liver cancer. They found no signs of hybrid hepatocytes in any of the tumors,
leading the researchers to conclude that these cells don contribute to liver cancer caused by obesity-induced hepatitis
or chemical carcinogens. ybrid hepatocytes represent not only the most effective way to repair a diseased liver,
Senior study author Bruce Spiegelman of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical school says that the confusion over irisin comes down to disagreement over how irisin protein is made in skeletal muscle cells and the detection limits
#Telltale biomarker detects early breast cancer in NIH-funded study Researchers have shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect the earliest signs of breast cancer recurrence and fast-growing tumors.
breakaway tumor cells with the potential to develop into dangerous secondary breast cancer tumors elsewhere in the body.
CWRU M. Frank Rudy and Margaret Domiter Rudy Professor of biomedical engineering and an expert in molecular imaging for cancer and other diseases. e showed with this technique that we can detect very tiny tumors of just
revealing smaller cancers than can be detected with current clinical imaging modalities. ur imaging technology has the potential to differentiate aggressive tumors from low-risk tumors.
These are two things that potentially can make a big impact on clinical practice and also management of cancer.
Since small, early-stage cancers are the most responsive to drug treatments, screening is an important aspect of follow-up care for breast cancer patients,
they are neither able to detect specific cancer types or early cancer growth. The earliest signs of cancer spread are called micrometastases.
As the name implies, they are often too small to be detected with standard screening. Dr. Lu team used a biochemical approach combined with MRI to detect molecular changes that signal micrometastases.
More importantly, the fibronectin part of the complex is expressed during a cell transition to cancer and plays a role in cell growth
The researchers collected images depicting metastases where breast cancer had spread beyond the original tumors. Metal molecules within the contrast solution are magnetized during the MRI process
and enhance the image wherever the molecules of solution bind with the targeted protein. he primary tumor sends signals to distant tissue
generating enough signal for MRI detection of small, high-risk cancer and micrometastases. The researchers tested the approach in mice into
and tumors compared with normal tissue. Using a microscopic imaging approach, called cryo-imaging, and MRI, the researchers verified that the MRI technique could detect micrometastases,
and the consequence of metastatic cancer make these efforts urgent and important, said Lu, adding that his research team also hopes to advance the approach for prostate cancer detection. e think this targeted approach holds great promise for earlier imaging of high-risk cancers in the clinic.
It could also become useful as a noninvasive way to assess breast cancer treatment progress.
The team plans to complete safety testing of the imaging agent during the next three years.
#New synthetic tumor environments make cancer research more realistic Tumors are notoriously difficult to study in their natural habitat body tissues
but a new synthetic tissue environment may give cancer researchers the next-best look at tumor growth and behavior.
and grow into a tumor. They were able to observe how differently cells act in the three-dimensional
and expensive mouse avatars that are created by injecting human tumor cells into mice. his is really the first time that it been demonstrated that you can use a rapid methodology like this to spatially define cancer cells and macrophages,
and finds out theye been diagnosed with some sort of solid tumor, Kilian said. ou take a biopsy of those cells,
or go awry in cancer. They could be used for therapeutic drug screening and to help teach researchers how to grow whole human organs.
we could be taking samples of different components of a cancer patient mammary gland and building a model of their tissue to use as a personalized drug screening platform.
and spread of tumors. ells aren lonely little automatons, Gartner said. hey communicate through networks to make group decisions.
it sets the stage for cancer. ut studying how the cells of complex tissues like the mammary gland self-organize,
but also to experiment with specifically adding in a single cell with a known cancer mutation to different parts of the organoid to observe its effects.
or more cells expressing low levels of the cancer gene Rasg12v affected the cells around them.
or structural changes in mammary glands can lead to the breakdown of tissue architecture associated with tumors that metastasize,
funding research into a new way to deliver protein-based cancer-fighting drugs and other therapeutics directly into cells.
More Precise Cancer Therapies UCSFUC San francisco researchers have engineered a molecular n switchthat allows tight control over the actions of T cells,
immune system cells that have shown great potential as therapies for cancer. The innovation lays the groundwork for sharply reducing severe,
one branch of the burgeoning field of cancer immunotherapy, have been refining cell-surface sensors known as chimeric antigen receptors, or CARS.
CARS prompt these cells to home in on particular proteins found primarily in tumors, where they launch a series of cancer-killing immune responses.
Dangers of CAR T cell Therapy CAR-equipped T cells have proven to be remarkably successful in the treatment of various forms of chemotherapy-resistant leukemia
But CAR T cell therapy can cause side effects so serious that they may require monitoring in an Intensive care unit several patients have died after receiving CAR T cells
when leukemia cells were implanted into mice. These cancer cells were powerfully and selectively eliminated by the Lim group new CAR T cells,
genetically engineered to carry CARS that target the patient tumor, then reinserted into the bloodstream to exert their effects.
in addition to attacking tumors directly, CAR T cells, like all T cells, release signaling molecules called cytokines, some
of which recruit additional T cells to fight the tumor. Sometimes normal cells express small amounts of a cancer-associated protein targeted by a CAR T cell.
Because CAR T cells placed in the bloodstream pass immediately through the heart and lungs, these tissues can be damaged before the CAR T cells reach their intended target elsewhere in the body.
In tumor lysis syndrome, the body is overwhelmed by toxic substances released when many tumor cells die in rapid succession.
which released cytokines summon numerous T cells to the tumor, then these newly arrived T cells release their own cytokines, and so on.
While successful against blood cancers such as leukemia, CAR T cells have shown so far less efficacy against solid tumors that effect the colon, breast, prostrate, brain and other tissues.
The remote control strategy developed by Lim group may permit researchers to develop more powerful versions of CAR T cells that could attack these solid tumors,
so that the cells will respond to multiple characteristics that are distinctive to an individual patient tumor,
quite powerful effects even if for a subset of patients or for certain types of cancer is really remarkable,
Certain diseases, including cancer, involves changes in DNA methylation patterns, and the ability to document these alterations aid in the development of novel therapies. ethylation is really key in development,
and in cancer, says Whitehead Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. his reporter is a very important tool.
and screening for the activation of genes silenced in diseases like cancer. This method will allow us to see which drug will activate a given gene.
For example, they could look for a drug that could change the hypermethylation that has been associated with a specific cancer.
Their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, may aid efforts to build point-of-care devices for quick medical diagnosis of various diseases ranging from cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, sexually transmitted diseases (STDS),
Eric O. Freed, director and a senior investigator of the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program within the National Cancer Institute, Chen Liang, an associate professor at Mcgill University and Benjamin Chen
including in cancer research, says Levi Garraway, an institute member of the Broad Institute, and the inaugural director of the Joint Center for Cancer Precision Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women Hospital,
and the Broad Institute. Garraway was involved not in the research. An open approach to empower research Zhang,
Their findings may aid efforts to build point-of-care devices for quick medical diagnosis of various diseases ranging from cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, sexually transmitted diseases (STDS),
#Researchers disguise drugs as platelets to target cancer Researchers have developed for the first time a technique that coats anticancer drugs in membranes made from a patient own platelets,
and attack both primary cancer tumors and the circulating tumor cells that can cause a cancer to metastasize.
not only attack the main tumor site, but are more likely to find and attach themselves to tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream essentially attacking new tumors before they start,
says Quanyin Hu, lead author of the paper and a Ph d. student in the joint biomedical engineering program.
When one of the pseudo-platelets comes into contact with a tumor, three things happen more or less at the same time.
and TRAIL in the pseudo-platelet drug delivery system was significantly more effective against large tumors
and circulating tumor cells than using Dox and TRAIL in a nanogel delivery system without the platelet membrane. e like to do additional preclinical testing on this technique,
#Raising Computers to Be Good Scientists Making sense of the new scientific data published every year including well over a million cancer-related journal articles is a tall order for the contemporary scientist.
such as the treatment of cancer patients, is an arduous, uphill battle. But an associate professor in the University of Arizona School of Information
fast, individualized and precise biomedical care. he REACH project is applied to cancer biology, but we have an even bigger vision than that,
although cancer biology is big enough, Morrison said. If big data is a two-part challenge,
the system was able to process 1, 000 papers on RAS-related cancers in a matter of hours,
Secondly, RAS oncogenes are mutated in 33 percent of all human cancers, making them one of the most highly researched classes of oncogenes.
As of now, REACH is already familiar with 30 different species affected by RAS-related cancers.
#Ground-breaking computer program diagnoses cancer in two days In the vast majority of cancer cases, the doctor can quickly identify the source of the disease, for example cancer of the liver, lungs, etc.
and attempts to locate the origin of the cancer before starting any treatment. Now, researchers at DTU Systems Biology have combined genetics with computer science
Each year, about 35,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in Denmark, and many of them face the prospect of a long wait until the cancer has been diagnosed and its source located.
However, even after very extensive tests, there will still be 2-3 per cent of patients where it has not been possible to find the origin of the cancer.
In such cases, the patient will be treated with a cocktail of chemotherapy instead of a more appropriately targeted treatment,
are based on analyses of DNA mutations in cancer tissue samples from patients with metastasized cancer,
i e. cancer which has spread. The pattern of mutations is analysed in a computer program which has been trained to find possible primary tumour localizations.
whether an individual cancer patient will benefit from a specific type of medicine. This is a very effective method
and it is becoming increasingly common to conduct such sequencing for cancer patients. Associate professor Aron Eklund from DTU Systems Biology explains:
e are pleased very that we can now use the same sequencing data together with our new algorithms to provide a much faster diagnosis for cancer cases that are difficult to diagnose,
and thus also as an effective and easy way of monitoring people who are at risk of developing cancer.
The researchers also suggest that this technology will be useful in the surgical treatment of brain tumors.
Surgeons aggressively removing a tumor run the risk of damaging normal brain tissue and impairing the patient brain functions;
on the other hand, incomplete removal of a tumor results in immediate relapse in 90%of patients. Being able to simultaneously see the surgical field
and the contrast agent identifying cancerous tissue within the augmented microscope may allow surgeons to remove these challenging tumors more accurately
In one of many successful tests, the lab designed molecules to detect mutation sequences in historic biopsy samples preserved in wax from cancer patients.
One of the researchersgoals is to design noninvasive cancer diagnostics that detect DNA biomarkers in blood samples for early screening and early recurrence detection.
and apply it to cancer detection a
#Clinical trial shows first ever positive results in treating primary progressive and relapsing multiple sclerosis Three phase three clinical studies using the drug ocrelizumab to treat patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have yielded positive results for treating two forms of the disease and the first ever positive results
The research, funded by the blood cancer charity Bloodwise and the Medical Research Council (MRC
e are starting to find that many forms of blood cancer can be traced back to defects in the basic housekeeping processes in our cellsmaturation.
ew insights into the biology of blood cancers and disorders that originate in the bone marrow have only been made possible by the latest advances in technology.
Those with mutations in polycystic kidney disease genes formed balloon like, fluid filled sacks, called cysts, from kidney tubules.
for example, organoids with polycystic kidney disease formed cysts, while organoids with changes in a protein that is implicated in glomerulonephritis displayed altered cell to cell interactions,
#Researchers discover mechanism that could lead to better ovarian cancer treatment Resistance to chemotherapy is a major problem for those suffering from ovarian cancer problem that prevents a cure from a disease dubbed the ilent killer.
Over the last five years, UGA College of Pharmacy associate professors Mandi Murph and Shelley Hooks have discovered that a type of protein known as RGS10 impacts the effectiveness of ovarian cancer chemotherapy.
Finding mtor as the mechanism of RGS10 effects could help explain the unique features of chemoresistant cancer cells. hemoresistance to ovarian cancer is what kills women,
Hooks said. t the deadliest gynecologic cancer. Most women with ovarian cancer will have their tumors come back. ithin two years,
85 percent of women will have their cancer come back in a more aggressive form, Murph said. t is during that time that they won respond to the chemotherapy.
Their article ellular deficiency in the RGS10 protein facilitates chemoresistant ovarian cancer, reviews over five years worth of research on RGS10 and was published in Future Medicinal Chemistry.
Their findings on RGS10 have jump-started an interest in the protein as well as created several major research articles on the topic.
the chemotherapy for ovarian cancer is more or less effective, Hooks explained. They also found that RGS10 is silenced epigenetically,
she explained. t would mean a better chance of survival for women with ovarian cancer.
we can cure ovarian cancer. Currently, platinum chemotherapy drugs, like paclitaxel and carboplatin are used as a one-size-fits-all treatment for ovarian cancer patients.
However, chemoresistance to platinum drugs remains a serious challenge to curing ovarian cancer. Murph recommends more research on mtor inhibitors to see how they can be modified to respond to chemotherapy. ive years ago
this field of RGS10 cancer research didn exist, she said. ut Dr hooks and I have been able to create this area of research
and lead it. Before no one knew or cared about RGS10 effects in cancer cells. Now we have more research that could contribute to improving chemotherapy. h
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