Hormone replacement therapies could cause specialized cancer cells to induce growth, metastasis Hormone replacement therapies, or medications containing female hormones that substitute those no longer produced by the body, often are prescribed to reduce the effects of menopausal symptoms in women. Research has indicated that women who take hormone replacement therapies have a higher incidence...
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Researchers engineer macrophages to engulf cancer cells in solid tumors
One reason cancer is so difficult to treat is that it avoids detection by the body. Agents of the immune system are constantly checking the surfaces of cells for chemical signals that say they belong, but cancer cells express the same chemical signals as healthy ones. Without a way for the immune system to tell...
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Cancer may metastasize without lymph node involvement
NFCR-funded research finds two distinct patterns of metastatic spread in human colorectal cancer (Bethesda, MD, July 13, 2017) Research by several leading scientists including Rakesh Jain, PhD, Director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and supported in part by the National Foundation for Cancer Research, has provided...
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Immunosuppression Underlies Resistance to Anti-angiogenic Therapy
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has identified a novel mechanism behind resistance to angiogenesis inhibitors – drugs that fight cancer by suppressing the formation of new blood vessels. In their report published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the team based in the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology in the MGH Department of Radiation Oncology describes...
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Could the FLU cure cancer? Injecting inoperable patients with the common virus destroys their tumours and could be a ‘game-changing’ new treatment
Scientists are to trial the new treatment on humans with advanced liver cancer Initial tests have already shown the strange technique to shatter tumours in mice Volunteers will all have a runny nose after being given the jab, doctors suspect The common cold virus could have the power to destroy tumours in cancer patients, scientists suspect. Doctors...
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CNIC scientists find the key to improved cancer immunotherapy
The study, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that tissue-resident and circulating memory T cells cooperate in anti-tumor immunity Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (F.S.P.) have investigated how different subtypes of essential immune-response cells called CD8+ T lymphocytes cooperate to mount a stronger anti-tumor response. The results show that generation of...
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Using Light to Activate Genes and Kill Cancer
Scientists at Kyoto University in Japan have developed a gene delivery system, involving gold nanorods and a near infrared laser, which can transport a gene into cells and activate it. Changing gene expression is a powerful way to affect cell behavior, and scientists hope to use this approach to treat a variety of diseases. Researchers...
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Stem cell educator therapy may help fight diabetes
Yong Zhao, M.D., Ph.D., an associate scientist at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, and colleagues looked at four years of data on nine type 1 diabetes patients in China. Two individuals with type 1 diabetes who received a stem cell educator treatment shortly after diagnosis (five and eight months later) still had normal C-peptide production and...
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Assessing the Safety of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells and Their Derivatives for Clinical Applications
Pluripotent stem cells may acquire genetic and epigenetic variants during culture following their derivation. At a conference organized by the International Stem Cell Initiative, and held at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, October 2016, participants discussed how the appearance of such variants can be monitored and minimized and, crucially, how their significance for the...
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Advance furthers stem cells for use in drug discovery, cell therapy
Since highly versatile human stem cells were discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison nearly 20 years ago, their path to the market and clinic has been slowed by a range of complications. Both embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are valued for their ability to form any cell in the body. This week, a UW-Madison team reports...