#Herpes used in cancer treatment Researchers used a modified herpes virus to successfully treat patients with aggressive skin cancer
and believe the method could pave the way for a new generation of cancer treatments.
said Dr Kevin Harrington, professor of biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research London (ICR),
durable benefit for people with melanoma, said Dr Harrington. Professor Paul Workman, Chief executive of the ICR, said in a statement,
and kill human cells that can make them such promising cancer treatments. Australian has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world and according to the Cancer Council,
two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they are 70. While the trials have provided great optimism in regards to future cancer treatments,
the successful results have yet to be replicated. The Australian Cancer Research Foundation refrained from commenting on the story
and are waiting for more clinical trials to be done in the field of virotherapy and cancer.
However Dr Hayley Frend, science information manager at Cancer Research UK said she was excited by the results. sing a virus to both kill cancer cells
and nudge the immune system into attacking them is exciting, she said. While previous testing has shown benefits of such treatments,
"At present, if you lose an arm, a leg or soft tissue as part of cancer treatment or burns,
#Finally, a way to catch symptomless pancreatic cancer in time It's the sneakiest of cancers and as many as 80 per cent of cases are identified too late.
The disease has one of the worst cancer survival rates, with less than 4 per cent of people living for five years or more after diagnosis. A major cause of this is that
Raghu Kalluri of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston found that there is so much more glypican-1 in people with pancreatic cancer that a blood test can be used to accurately distinguish them from both healthy controls and people with the disease pancreatitis."
"The margin is always large enough to detect cancer exosomes, "says Kalluri. When to test?"
"says Nell Barrie of the charity Cancer Research UK.""This could, in turn, one day offer a way to spot diseases like pancreatic cancer at a much earlier stage,
potentially providing doctors with a measure for how advanced the cancer is and a way to monitor the effectiveness of treatments.
which could boost our ability to track the spread of diseases such as cancer. Humar and his colleagues developed three ways to get cells to emit visible light.
#Nivolumab helps fight Cancerous Lung Tumors A trial has suggested that a therapy for lung cancer has the ability to double the life expectancy in patients.
Lung cancer, which is also known as carcinoma of the lung, is the deadliest form of cancer that kills about 1. 6 million people every year.
It is difficult to treat the cancer as it is usually diagnosed late. In addition a number of patients are found unsuitable for surgery due to their smoking-related diseases.
Nivolumab is among the set of drugs known as heckpoint inhibitorsthat are developed by a number of pharmaceutical companies.
Those drugs stop cancers by turning off the immune system of human so that it could keep on attacking the harmful tumor.
The new trial was conducted in the United states and Europe on people with advanced lung cancer. Those people had tried already other treatments,
Those whose tumors were producing high levels of PD-L1 lived for more than one and half year.
#System Combines Optical Microscopy, MRI Combining optical and MRI techniques, a new imaging system aims to uncover the complexities of tumors to help better tailor cancer treatment.
Together they are being used to peer into the microenvironment of tumors and other tissues while learning about the coregistration of multiple lines of imaging data."
"In a study, a tumor cell line was transplanted into a rat and imaged with each of the following:
while other parts of a tumor could be rapidly growing or becoming more aggressive. These details tell researchers about the heterogeneity of tumors,
which is essential for developing appropriate research and drug protocols that can navigate all the inherent complexity of not just the anatomy
OCT Could Aid Brain tumor Removal Study: OCT Could Aid Brain tumor Removalbaltimore, June 19, 2015 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) holds promise for guiding surgeons as they operate on brain tumors
and help them avoid removing healthy tissue. After identifying brain cancer's OCT signature, researchers at Johns hopkins university have developed a computer algorithm that rapidly generates a color-coded map that shows cancer in red and healthy tissue in green."
"We envision that the OCT would be aimed at the area being operated on, and the surgeon could look at a screen to get a continuously updated picture of where the cancer is
and isn't,"said professor Xingdi Li. So far the system has been tested on fresh human brain tissue removed during surgeries
and in surgeries to remove brain tumors from mice. The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in patients this summer.
Neurosurgeons walk a tightrope as they try to take out as much of the cancer as possible
while keeping crucial brain tissue intact. Visually distinguishing the two is often impossible.""As a neurosurgeon,
I'm taking out a tumor, "said Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, a professor of neurosurgery, neuroscience and oncology at the Johns hopkins university School of medicine and the clinical leader of the research team."
the cancer could come back; too much, and the patient can be disabled permanently. We think optical coherence tomography has strong potential for helping surgeons know exactly where to cut."
"Optical coherence tomography that could help surgeons differentiate a human brain tumor, red, from surrounding noncancerous tissue, green.
Cancers tend to be relatively dense, which affects how they scatter and reflect light. Brain cancer cells also lack the myelin sheaths that coat healthy brain cells,
The system could be adapted to detect cancers in other parts of the body, said doctoral student Carmen Kut.
Doppler OCT Measures Cocaine Impact on Brain Drugs Enhance SPECT Imaging of Metastatic Cancer Compact Imaging,
IPIC to Commercialize OCT Biosensor Raman Imager Speeds Cancer Detectio e
#Continuously Disinfecting Light Fixtures Commercialized Designed to continuously disinfect the air and surfaces in hospitals,
and experimental drugs is essential for pharmaceutical research and particularly for cancer treatment. To demonstrate their design, the researchers applied fluorescent dyes to specific molecules within a cell sample.
and can cause cancer over time, and UV-B, with shorter wavelengths that cause sunburns.
which is known to trigger melanoma (a type of skin cancer that can develop from abnormal moles).
According to UK cancer research, new cases of malignant melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, have become the fifth most common cancer.
#Glasses that make cancer glow When Sandy Sagitto was diagnosed with breast cancer she was devastated.""First thought is that
when her doctors said they needed to remove the cancer forming in her body. Sagitto, 53, a neurosurgery nurse for the past 25 years,
a procedure to remove a portion of the breast to treat cancer, surgeons rely on scans taken before the operation to decide how much tissue to remove.
The system works by first injecting the patient with a cancer-targeting dye that attaches to abnormal cells.
Currently the cancer glasses are being tested on skin and breast cancer patients, but Dr. Achilefu says they could be used to visualize
and remove a wide range of cancers. He says lighting up cancer means a brighter future for people diagnosed with the deadly disease e
#Chimaera device paves way for wireless pain relief The hand-held device, called Chimaera, could revolutionize the delivery of miniaturized neurostimulators to specific nerves,
it can be a source for triggering cancer, for example, said study co-author Dr Gilles Hickson from the University of Montreal, Canada.
In fact, all cancers are characterized by unchecked cell division, and the underpinning processes are potential targets for therapeutic interventions that prevent cancer onset
and spread. ut before we get there, we must continue to expand our knowledge about the basic processes
#Telomerase Cancer cell Mutation Mystery Solved More than 500,000 people in the United states die each year of cancer-related causes
Recent cancer research has shown that highly recurrent mutations in the promoter of the TERT gene are the most common genetic mutations in many cancers,
including adult glioblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. TERT stabilizes chromosomes by elongating the protective element at the end of each chromosome in a cell.
which these common mutations result in elevated TERT expression by using computational and experimental analyses to determine that the mechanism of increased TERT expression in tumor tissue relies on a specific transcription factor-a protein that binds specific DNA sequences
and binds the mutant TERT promoter in tumor cells from four different cancer types, underscoring that this is a common mechanism of TERT reactivation.
The identified transcription factor and its regulators have great potential for the development of new precision therapeutic interventions in cancers that harbor the TERT mutations.
Way To Disrupt Brain tumor Stem Cells Some brain tumors are notoriously difficult to treat. Whether surgically removed, zapped by radiation
The ability of many brain tumors to regenerate can be traced to cancer stem cells that evade treatment and spur the growth of new tumor cells.
But some brain tumor stem cells may have an Achilles'heel, scientists have found. The cancer stem cells'remarkable abilities have to be maintained,
and researchers at Washington University School of medicine in St louis have identified a key player in that maintenance process.
so is the spread of cancer.""This discovery may help us attack the root of some of the deadliest brain tumors,
"said senior author Albert H. Kim, MD, Phd, assistant professor of neurological surgery.""A successful brain cancer treatment will very likely require blocking the tumor stem cells'ability to survive
and replenish themselves. Kim studies glioblastoma, a deadly form of brain cancer that each year strikes about 18,000 people in the United states. The average length of survival after diagnosis is 15 months,
and only 30 percent of patients survive more than two years. Scientists have realized in recent years that some cancer cells in glioblastomas
and other tumors are more resistant to treatment than others. Those same, more defiant cells also are much better at reestablishing cancer after treatment."
"These tumor stem cells are really the kingpins of cancers--the cells that direct and drive much of the harm done by tumors,
"said Kim, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of medicine.
Kim and his colleagues identified a protein, known as SOX2, that is active in brain tumor stem cells and in healthy stem cells in other parts of the body.
The researchers found that the tumor stem cells'ability to make SOX2 could be turned up or down via another protein, CDC20.
Increasing SOX2 by boosting levels of CDC20 also increased a tumor's ability to grow once transplanted into mice.
Eliminating CDC20 meanwhile, left tumor stem cells unable to make SOX2, reducing the tumor stem cells'ability to form tumors."
"The rate of growth in some tumors lacking CDC20 dropped by 95 percent compared with tumors with more typical levels of CDC20,
"Kim said. When the scientists analyzed human tumor samples, they found that a subset of patients with glioblastomas that had the highest CDC20 levels also had the shortest periods of survival after diagnosis. Kim's lab is exploring methods to block CDC20 in brain tumors,
including RNA interference, an approach in which the production of specific proteins is blocked. That general approach is in clinical trials as a therapy for other cancers, viral infections and other illnesses.
Citation: Mao DD, Gujar AD, Mahlokozera T, Chen I, Pan Y, Luo J, Brost T, Thompson EA, Turski A, Leuthardt EC, Dunn GP
, Chicoine MR, Rich KM, Dowling JL, Zipfel GJ, Dacey RG, Achilefu S, Tran DD, Yano H, Kim AH.
A CDC20-APC/SOX@signaling axis regulates human glioblastoma stem-like cells. Cell Reports, online June 11, 2015.
the American Cancer Society; Voices Against Brain Cancer; the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation; the Concern Foundation;
and the Duesenberg Research Fund d
#Metal-Organic Framework Compounds: Solar cell Made Of Highly Ordered Molecular Frameworks Researchers have developed a functioning organic solar cell consisting of a single component has been produced on the basis of metal-organic framework compounds (MOFS.
it can be a source for triggering cancer, for example, said Hickson. It is well known that microscopic cable-like structures,
In fact, all cancers are unchecked characterised by cell division, and the underpinning processes are potential targets for therapeutic interventions that prevent cancer onset
and spread. ut before we get there, we must continue to expand our knowledge about the basic processes
The results come from a clinical trial in the UK involving more than 400 patients with aggressive melanoma,
from the Institute of Cancer Research London, told Hannah Devlin at The Guardian. The herpes-based drug, named Talimogene Laherparepvec (T-VEC), has proven so effective,
According to the study, published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, of the 436 patients with inoperable melanoma, 16.3 percent of them were still in remission six months after the treatment,
which boosts a patient immune response to the cancer. Of those who took the T-VEC drug,
'having showed no signs of the cancer following the treatment, and during the trial, the T-VEC group lived an average of 41 months,
or metastatic form of the cancer, were too far along to respond to conventional treatments,
even if the cancer had spread to various other organs in the body.""They had ranged disease that from dozens to hundreds of deposits of melanoma on a limb all the way to patients where cancer had spread to the lungs and liver,
"Harrington told her. Harrington, who has been developing the treatment for over 10 years, has been trying it out across a range of different cancer types,
and found that melanoma responded the most positively to it. The team figured out how to harness its amazing capacity for replication by removing two genes that made it impossible for it to multiply inside healthy cells,
but it still had its run of things inside the cancerous melanoma cells.""Meanwhile, T-VEC has also been modified to produce a molecule called GM-CSF,
which serves as a red flag waved at the immune system,"Rachel Feltman reports for The Washington post."
"The team will continue to test out the drug on other forms of cancer through clinical trials,
how cancer begins to spread through the body o
#Engineers have created a computer that operates on water droplets Researchers in the US have built a fully functioning computer that runs like clockwork-but instead of electrons,
and extend the reach of new cancer-killing immunotherapy treatments, which currently rely on viral vectors and cost around $5, 000-$10, 000 a pop.
and early trials show that they may also be far more effective-with studies so far proving immunotherapy is successful against aggressive forms of melanoma and glioblastoma.
The scientists are now looking for ways they can use the same approach to develop more effective and less toxic cancer treatments in humans.
and suggest future avenues for developing effective cancer treatments. ost of the drugs we use to fight cancer are designed to kill cancerous cells.
and the side effects can be intense. reatment regimes for advanced colorectal cancer involve combination chemotherapies that are toxic and largely ineffective,
. But his team may have now found a new way to fight the cancer type, by reactivating a gene known as adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) that turned off in 90 percent of human colorectal tumours.
and six months later there were no signs of the cancer coming back. While scientists have looked previously into turning certain genes on or off in animal models in order to fight cancer,
they've struggled to do so without triggering excess gene activity and causing other problems in normal cells.
Even more impressive was the fact that this approach worked on mice with malignant colorectal cancer tumours that contain Kras
"It is currently impractical to directly restore Apc function in patients with colorectal cancer, and past evidence suggests that completely blocking Wnt signaling would likely be severely toxic to normal intestinal cells,
the team believes that the same approach could be tweaked to suit other cancer types.""If we can define which types of mutations
we will be equipped better to identify the most appropriate treatments for individual cancers, said Lukas Dow, one of the researchers.
"That clinical use involves the carbon spheres being coated with polymer-a polymer that can gradually release drugs into the system to fight cancer and other diseases.
"This is a versatile platform to carry a multitude of drugs-for melanoma, for other kinds of cancers and for other diseases,"says Rohit Bhargava."
"You can coat it with different polymers to give it a different optical response. You can load it with two drugs,
and paranoia, were triggered by a single pathway in the brain that was separate from the pathway that triggers the drug cancer-killing properties.
called GPC1, was only being carried by exosomes in the blood of the cancer patients. According to Schattner at Forbes
because it's one of the cancers we don't have any reliable screening test for one of the researchers,
Derek Raghavan from the Levine Cancer Institute in the US told Linda Carroll at NBC News."It kills people
which means the team still needs to figure out how to properly differentiate between the different types of cancer it can detect in the final analysis.
But one of the team, Raghu Kalluri from the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in the US, told NBC News that he thinks the blood test could be available in as little as a year.
#Novel method to predict postoperative liver cancer recurrence in transplant patients UCLA transplantation researchers have developed a novel method that more accurately calculates the risk of disease recurrence in liver cancer patients who have undergone a liver transplant,
Chair in Surgery and director of the Pfleger Liver Institute and Dumont-UCLA Transplant and Liver Cancer Centers presented the study during the annual meeting of the Southern Surgical Association.
The predictive calculator also known as a nomogram was developed after the research team analyzed data from UCLA's 30 years of experience with liver transplantation for liver cancer.
The retrospective study included 865 liver cancer patients who had transplants between 1984 and 2013 said study first author Dr. Vatche G. Agopian an assistant professor of surgery in the division
which liver cancer patients might be good candidates for transplant and patients with all sizes and numbers of tumors underwent transplantation often times with early recurrence of disease.
In 1996 radiologic criteria popularized as the Milan criteria were introduced and recommended transplantation be limited to patients with a single tumor of five centimeters or less or up to three tumors with not any single tumor larger than three centimeters.
However the criteria didn't take into account the aggressiveness of the tumor or other blood biomarkers that can help predict recurrence Agopian said.
UCLA's nomogram used three groups of factors to predict recurrence and was more accurate than the Milan criteria
and the existing American Joint Committee on Cancer pathologic TNM staging system giving transplant physicians and oncologists more information to work with in deciding how often to monitor for recurrence and whether or not adjuvant treatment
This novel nomogram includes three important groups of information that proved to be very accurate in predicting recurrence in liver cancer patients better than any other system out there Agopian said.
and have a meaningful discussion with transplant recipients regarding their post-transplant risk of cancer recurrence.
or the number and size of tumors on MRI and CT SCANS three pre-transplant blood biomarkers thought to be predictive for cancer recurrence
or aggressiveness of the tumor and whether the cancer has invaded the liver's blood vessels factors that can't be determined before transplant.
For example a patient with a 5 centimeter tumor who would have qualified for liver transplant under the Milan criteria might in fact have a very aggressive tumor that is likely to recur after transplant
while a patient with a larger tumor might have a very low grade cancer and be at lower risk for recurrence.
and get individualized predicted risks of cancer recurrence Agopian said. The Milan criteria presented a major step in improving the outcomes of liver cancer patients undergoing transplant Agopian said.
However there is now a growing consensus and body of evidence that these criteria are too conservative
and that incorporation of other factors may improve the ability to select for patients with favorable tumor biology regardless of size who stand to benefit from liver transplantation.
About 32000 Americans will be diagnosed with liver cancer this year. Of those 23000 will die of their disease.
Liver cancer is the sixth most common cause of cancer worldwide and the third most common cause of cancer-related death.
In the United states the incidence of liver cancer has doubled nearly over the last two decades.
For most patients who are diagnosed with liver cancer it generally is advanced too to treat with surgery.
For patients with underlying liver dysfunction who are unable to undergo surgery to remove the tumor liver transplantation is the best way to treat the patient.
In the largest single-institution experience with liver transplant for liver cancer excellent long-term survival was achieved.
A novel clinicopathologic prognostic nomogram accurately predicts liver cancer recurrence after liver transplant and may guide frequency of post-transplant surveillance and adjuvant therapy y
Industry reduced early-stage research favoring medical devices bioengineered drugs and late-stage clinical trials particularly for cancer and rare diseases.
Cancer and HIV/AIDS were funded well above the predicted levels based on U s. disability alone with cancer accounting for 16 percent of total NIH funding and 25 percent of all
#Mechanism leading to drug resistance metastasis in melanoma patients discovered Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a mechanism that leads to resistance to targeted therapy in melanoma patients
and improve outcomes for many cancer patients, when compared to the adverse effects of standard chemotherapeutic drugs.
resulting in more aggressive cells that can spread to other sites or cause regrowth of primary tumors.
B-Raf is a protein that is frequently mutated in human cancers leading to increased tumor cell growth, survival and migration.
Drugs that target B-Raf or another protein in the same network called MEK have proved effective in clinical trials.
and a MEK inhibitor being the current standard of care for patients with B-Raf mutant melanoma.
They found that melanoma cells that are resistant to B-Raf inhibitors tend to be more aggressive and invasive,
thereby allowing the tumor to spread to a new organ site. They used a large screening approach
"said Keiran S. Smalley, Ph d.,scientific director of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research center of Excellence at Moffitt.
The research also showed that targeting Epha2 reduced the aggressive behavior of the melanoma cells.
The study was published in the online edition of Cancer Discovery on Dec 26 2014 0
#Toward quantum chips: Packing single-photon detectors on an optical chip is crucial for quantum-computational circuits Single-photon detectors are notoriously temperamental:
#Researchers uncover key cancer-promoting gene One of the mysteries in cancer biology is how one protein,
TGF-beta, can both stop cancer from forming and encourage its aggressive growth. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered a key gene that may explain this paradox
and provide a potential target for treatment. TGF-beta is known as a tumor suppressor, meaning it necessary to keep cells in check
and growing normally. But at some point, its function flips and it becomes a tumor promoter, fostering aggressive growth and spread of cancer.
The researchers identified Bub1 as a key gene involved in regulating TGF-beta receptor. The study is published in Science Signaling. ur data that Bub1 is involved at the receptor level is unexpected completely,
We think this may explain the paradox of TGF-beta as a tumor promoter and a tumor suppressor,
Researchers also have known that Bub1 is expressed highly in many different types of cancer. Because Bub1 is found in many types of cancer
developing a drug to target it could potentially impact multiple cancers. A compound to target Bub1 has been developed
but is not ready for testing in patients. Initial lab testing suggests that a Bub1 inhibitor can very specifically target Bub1 without causing damage to other parts of the cell. hen you look at gene expression in cancer,
Bub1 is in the top five. In addition, Bub1 expression levels correlate with outcome in patients with lung and breast cancer.
This meant they were able to remove very immature (undifferentiated) cells that could form tumors.
None of the mice developed tumors from the transplanted cells s
#New technology enables ultra-fast steering and shaping of light beams A team of engineers has developed a new acousto-optic device that can shape
#Blood test for prostate cancer investigated Mitchell believes the technique will be transformative in providing improved cancer diagnostics that can both predict treatment outcomes and monitor patient responses to therapy.
In a large retrospective study of blood samples the researchers showed that the method called a liquid biopsy could accurately distinguish prostate cancer from normal controls without prior knowledge of the genetic signature of the tumors and with over three times the sensitivity of current prostate specific-antigen
Based on the reported data and work in progress I believe the'liquid biopsy'will revolutionize cancer diagnostics
The study collected serum from more than 200 patients with prostate cancer and more than 200 controls.
The researchers reported that the technique distinguished prostate cancer from normal controls with 84-percent accuracy and cancer from benign hyperplasia and prostatitis with an accuracy of 91 percent.
Because the method quantifies the inherent chromosomal instability of cancer and can be followed as a function of time without having to do an invasive tissue biopsy it is called a liquid biopsy.
It's been known for many years that dying cells including tumor cells shed DNA into the bloodstream.
and quantify cancer-specific DNA from normal controls by the identification and chromosomal location of billions of specific DNA fragments present in blood as cell-free DNA.
The prostate cancer study identified 20 hotspots of greatest chromosomal instability as additions or deletions in less than 0. 5 percent of the total DNA present in human chromosomes.
Since the entire genome was surveyed the researchers were able to identify a non-coding region of the genome as a hotspot which may be generating previously unrecognized chromosomal control elements in prostate cancer.
and cell control processes that are highly relevant to cancer. Since cell-free DNA has a relatively short half-life in the circulation sequencing of cell-free DNA soon after therapy may be used to detect minimal residual disease in solid tumors Mitchell said.
The researchers reported similar results in a study of breast cancer at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
Mitchell further predicted that liquid biopsies will quantify immediate tumor responses to therapy y
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