The energy generators in cells, mitochondria, have their own genetic material (green circles) which is maintained by a repair toolkit (red circle) unraveled in this study. New research has unravelled the mystery of how mitochondria—the energy generators within cells—can withstand attacks on their DNA from rogue molecules. The findings could pave the way for...
Category: <span>Cancer</span>
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Results of glioblastoma clinical trial show safety and clinical benefit of CAR T cell therapy
Glioblastoma is the most common brain tumor in humans and also one of the most difficult cancers to treat; patients with this type of cancer only survive about one year from time of diagnosis. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Cancer Center, and the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor, Texas...
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UCLA scientists combine a peptide with a nano cancer drug formulation to improve treatment effectiveness and prevent metastasis in pancreatic cancer
Study shows the peptide enhances a vascular access pathway for nanocarriers in pancreatic cancer UCLA scientists have unlocked an important mechanism that allows chemotherapy-carrying nanoparticles – extremely small objects between 1 and 100 nanometers (a billionth of a meter) – to directly access pancreatic cancer tumors, thereby improving the ability to kill cancer cells and hence leading to more...
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Drug based on malaria protein shows promise against treatment-resistant bladder cancer
A new study shows that a drug derived from a protein found in the malaria parasite stopped chemotherapy-resistant bladder cancer tumors growing in mice. The researchers say that the finding could lead to much-needed new treatments for cases of bladder cancer that do not respond to standard therapy. Researchers believe that the study findings could...
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Amino acids in diet could be key to starving cancer
Cutting out certain amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—from the diet of mice slows tumour growth and prolongs survival, according to new research published in Nature. Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and the University of Glasgow found that removing two non-essential amino acids—serine and glycine—from the diet of mice slowed the development of lymphoma...
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Research team discovers how immunotherapy can fight some cancers
What if our immune system could cure cancer? This logic seems almost too simple to be true, but it forms the basis of an emerging cancer treatment—immunotherapy. André Veillette, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) / Montreal Clinical Research Institute and a professor of Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Medicine,...
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Test run finds no cancer risk from stem cell therapy
A colony of induced pluripotent stem cells. Blue fluorescence indicates cell nuclei; red and green are markers of pluripotency. Therapeutic stem cells can be made without introducing genetic changes that could later lead to cancer, a study in PLOS Genetics has found. The discovery, made by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a boost...
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Fighting cancer with immunotherapy: Signaling molecule causes regression of blood vessels
A microscopic image of tumor tissue under the influence of TNF (left) and IFN- γ (right). Red blood cells are pictured in a magenta color. TNF bursts the blood vessels and releases large amounts of blood cells, whereas IFN-γ lets vessels retreat. Immunotherapy with T-cells offers great hope to people suffering from cancer. Some...
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Annual flu jab may pose greater risk for lung cancer patients under immunotherapy
Lung cancer patients treated with PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors may be at increased risk of adverse events after receiving the seasonal influenza vaccination, according to the first study measuring this effect. The results, presented today at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland, offer the first hint of a possible contraindication with two...
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High rate of tumor shrinkage among pancreatic cancer patients: study
Adding cisplatin to the standard gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel drug treatment provided a very high rate of tumor shrinkage for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, according to the results of a pilot clinical trial conducted by the HonorHealth Research Institute and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). These statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in overall response and...