Stories tagged cancer
CT scan showing malignant mesothelioma tumor: a new drug is showing promise against several types of cancer.Courtesy Stevenfruitsmaak via Wikimedia CommonsWhen a cancer cell (a tumor) appears in a particular organ or area of a body, it somehow signals the body's immune system to back off and leave it alone. This allows the cancerous tumor to grow and eventually metastasize to the lymph nodes and other parts of the body. It's as if the cancer grants itself a sort of diplomatic immunity against the body's natural antibodies from interfering with its destructive undertakings.
Now, researchers have found a drug that switches off this "don't touch" warning and allows the cancer to be diminished or entirely destroyed. And it works for several types of cancers, including those affecting the brain, liver, colon, breast, ovary and prostate.
A protein called CD47 is present in human blood cells and prevents those cells from being attacked by the body's immune system. The protein attaches to the surface of the blood cells and signals to the immune system that the blood cells are "okay" and shouldn't be destroyed. About ten years ago, biologist Irving Weissman and researchers at Stanford University's School of Medicine noticed higher levels (up to 3x more) of the same "don't touch" protein were present in leukemia cells, a blood disorder. The surprised Weissman realized that the blood cancer was co-opting the body's own defense system to work against itself, thereby stopping any attacks on the cancer. This left the cancer unmolested and able to grow and spread. After further testing, Weissman and his colleagues subsequently discovered that CD47 levels in many other cancers were also higher than levels in normal cells.
"What we've shown is that CD47 isn't just important on leukemias and lymphomas, it's on every single human primary tumor that we tested.“
The Weissman lab has now developed a promising drug that switches off this "don't touch" signal in cancer cells giving the body's immune system the green light to go after them. The drug has been tested in the laboratory using petri dishes containing treated and untreated cancer molecules. Immune cells (macrophages) were present in each sample. In the untreated sample, the macrophages ignored the cancerous molecules, while they readily attacked those treated with the anti-CD47 drug. In later tests, a variety of human cancer tumors were placed into lab mice and left to grow for two weeks. After the tumors grabbed hold, they were treated with the anti-CD47 therapy and the tumors shrunk considerably or disappeared altogether.
"The microenvironment of a real tumor is quite a bit more complicated than the microenvironment of a transplanted tumor," Weissman said, "and it's possible that a real tumor has additional immune suppressing effects."
The biologist is confident that the research will eventually move into human clinical trials within the next two years.
SOURCES and LINKS
Sciencemag.org
Stanford news
Nature World News
What are antibodies
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Doubling up the double helix: The newly discovered quadruple helix in human DNA could lead to new treatments in cancer.Courtesy rijksbandradio (original image) via Flckr; graphic by author.By now most readers are aware of the double helix, the two intertwined ribbons of genetic information that make up our DNA.
Now researchers at University of Cambridge have announced the discovery of a quadruple helix in the human genome. The four-stranded genetic ribbons are termed G-quadruplexes because they contain high levels of the nucleotide guanine (the other 3 nucleotides are adenine, thymine, and cytosine – together they make up the G, A, T, and C elements of DNA; uracil (U) replaces thymine in RNA). G-quadruplexes mainly appear at the moment of cell replication, when cells divide and multiply. Researchers think this indicates that G-quadruplexes are an essential part of the replication process. The upsurge of G-quadrupleexes was detected using fluorescent biomarkers. The discovery could open up new avenues in the treatment of cancer
"The research indicates that quadruplexes are more likely to occur in genes of cells that are rapidly dividing, such as cancer cells,” said Shankar Balasubramanian, the study’s lead researcher. “For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated -- using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalised treatments in the future."
Balasubramanian, a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Cambridge Research Institute, thinks synthetic molecules could one day be used to corral the G-quadruplexes and hinder the out-of-control cell division often prevalent in cancerous cells. In fact, the research team has already been successful in slowing down the replication process by using such molecules. During their experiments, when cell division was blocked, the number of G-quadruplexes decreased.
The research was published in Nature Chemistry. The 'quadruple helix' discovery comes 60 years after the discovery of the double helix in 1953, also at the University of Cambridge.
SOURCES and LINKS
Wired
Science Daily
Sniffing Out Cancer: Amherst chemists develop a way to "smell" cancer cells.Courtesy Jeremie63Chemists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a way to quickly and accurately detect and identify metastatic cancer cells in living tissue, in much the same way that your nose can detect and identify certain odors.
The smell of a rose, for example, is a unique pattern of molecules, which activates a certain set of receptors in your nose. When these specific receptors are triggered, your brain immediately recognizes it as a rose.
Similarly, each type of cancer has a unique pattern to the proteins that make up its cells. The Amherst chemists just needed a "nose" to recognize these patterns. What they came up with was an array of gold nanoparticle sensors, coupled with green fluorescent proteins (GFP). The researchers took healthy tissue and tumor samples from mice, and trained the nanoparticle-GFP sensors to recognize the bad cells, and for the GFP to fluoresce in the presence of metastatic tissues.
This method is really sensitive to subtle differences, it's quick (can detect cancer cells within minutes), it can differentiate between types of cancers, and is minimally invasive. The researchers haven't tested this method on human tissue samples yet, but it holds some exciting potential.
Critical gene in fight against inflammation, rapid aging, and cancer isolated
It's in the genesCourtesy colm.mcmullan via FlickrResearchers at NYU's School of Medicine have announced in a new study that a gene known as AUF1, long known for its role in controlling inflammation has now been determined to also aid in the suppression of accelerated aging and cancer growth. The study appears today on the online version of the journal Molecular Cell and was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Go here for more about the discovery.
Smoking's damage is high-speedCourtesy AMagillDespite decades of warnings people still continue smoking cigarettes. Yes, they're all aware of the long-term effects of smoking such as heart disease and cancer, but now a new study out of the University of Minnesota shows that within just a few minutes of inhaling a cigarette's toxic smoke, cancer causing chemicals begin to form.
Researchers at the U of M studied a group of patients, and monitored the level of chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) that were derived from their inhaling cigarette smoke.The results showed that the subjects' bodies changed the PAHs into DNA-damaging chemicals almost immediately:
The smokers developed maximum levels of the substance in a time frame that surprised even the researchers: just 15-30 minutes after the volunteers finished smoking. These results are significant because PAH diol epoxides react readily with DNA, induce mutations, and are considered to be ultimate carcinogens of multiple PAH in cigarette smoke.
Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), an anti-smoking organization, said, "The chilling thing about this research is that it shows just how early the very first stages of that process begin - not in 30 years but within 30 minutes of a single cigarette for every subject in the study."
Dockrell added that it's never too late to quit and begin reducing smoking's harmful effects.
The study was funded by the American Cancer Society and appears in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
SOURCES and LINKS
BBC website
Fox News story
American Cancer Society
ASH (Action on Smoking and Health)
Gold. Pretty, pretty, cancer-annihilating gold. Wait, what? Yep, you read that right. Gold nanoshells are proving themselves mighty effective at killing cancer .
So here’s the process in an overly-simplified nut(nano?)shell –
1. Gold nanoshells are injected into the body.
2. The shells travel the bloodstream and seep into the tumor via the leaky blood vessels that feed it (your other blood vessels are nice and tightly woven).
3. The shiny new gold-nanoshell-infused-tumor is heated with infrared light (the same light that powers your remote controls at home) for about twenty minutes.
4. The gold-nanoshell-infused-tumor gets cooked to a dead crisp, while your healthy cells remain intact and healthy.
Great news if you’re a lab rat and you’re looking to stick around for more experiments since, so far, their studies with lab rats have been 100% effective in killing the cancer.
Also great news (mostly) if you’re a human and you’re looking for a possible cure for cancer that doesn’t involve getting horrendously sick from chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
Why “mostly?” Well, because there are 
Gold NuggetCourtesy United States Geological Surveyfew questions that ought to be asked:
1. What happens to the rest of the gold nanoshells that don’t make it to the tumor? Are they absorbed by the body? Are they processed by the liver and then passed?
2. If they’re passed through the body via the liver, what happens to them once they’re in our waste-water treatment facilities?
3. What affect do they have on the environment?
4. If the treated water makes it back to our drinking water – will we be consuming gold nanoshells without our knowledge? What then?
It’s very easy to get all rah-rah-sis-boom-bah! about exciting new cancer treatments because we all want it so badly. But it’s also important to ask the difficult questions upfront, so that we’re not facing any nasty surprises down the road (asbestos, anyone?). Meanwhile, I’ll be quietly flying my gold nanoshell flag. Go, fight, win!
Deathstalker scorpion venom, combined with nanoscale particles of iron oxide, can slow the spread of BRAIN CANCER.
What is there not to love in that sentence? You've got scorpion venom, nano stuff, brain cancer...heck, I was hooked at the word Deathstalker.
Just so you know - the formal science way of saying the same thing is “Chlorotoxin Labeled Magnetic Nanovectors for Targeted Gene Delivery to Glioma”. You can find the article here.
Deathstalker ScorpionCourtesy Ester Inbar
Naked Mole Rat: a mighty survivor both hairless and nearly blindCourtesy MissTessmacherThe naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is truly one of the most remarkable animals on this earth. On average 3 inches long and weighing just over an ounce, one would not think this creature so high and mighty. However, its unusual traits have brought it under more medical scrutiny and established an ever increasing presence in research laboratories. Stories have rung for years about how the only species to survive a world Armageddon would be cockroaches and rats. My money is on the naked mole rat.
While called a rat, they are one of 37 species of mole rats globally and are more closely related to guinea pigs and porcupines than other Rodentia. Limited to parts of East Africa, they spend their lives under ground in a highly social commune of individuals, all governed by a queen. This is very similar to the eusociality seen in bees and ants. The queen is the only female to breed, with all other individuals serving as guards or workers. This unusual social life for a mammal in a colony can lead to fierce competitions among females when the old queen dies. It may take days or weeks of power struggle before life in the colony returns to normal.
In search of plant tubers for sustenance, they dig through the dirt with their teeth, developing a system of burrows that can carry on for miles. One of the naked mole rats remarkable features is its ability to survive in the high carbon dioxide environments of these tunnels. Their extremely low metabolic rate and high absorption of oxygen allow them to overcome the limitations of the cramped and congested space. Research has found that these mole rats are void of a pain transmitter called Substance P found in other mammals, and have an uncanny resistance to the oxidative stress of daily metabolism.
Researchers hope this could lead to new insights into the process of aging. Captive research colonies have had individuals live as long as 28 years. That is more than nine times as long as a research mouse! This longevity and unique durability lead even more scientists to consider the naked mole rat for captive study populations in the fight against other afflictions like stroke and cancer. If these superman-like traits haven’t given you a deeper appreciation for such a tiny hairless creature, perhaps you just need a clever ditty to sing their praises. Oh! …you so UGLY!
Playing with fire: Delicious fire.Courtesy eshermanThe people of the world wait, their breath held, their tongues clenched between their teeth, open cans of Fresca frozen halfway to their mouths. What do you mean, JGordon? Does soda give me cancer? Or not?
Well?!
Don’t worry, folks. It’s mostly “or not.” Or is it? Or not.
You may have heard (or read—I call it “hearing with your eyes”) that soft drinks might raise your chances of developing cancer. That was probably hard to hear (or read—I call “listening through your face-holes”), because I know you’re generally pro-soda, and generally anti-cancer, and you had been living your life in the hope that there would never be any conflict between the two. You can probably go on living like that, because it’s unlikely that pop is really going to give you cancer, but you should be aware that the world is a complicated place, and your soda and your cancer are sadly not excluded from the complications.
See, a the results of a study out of the University of Minnesota were recently published claiming that there seemed to be a link between the regular consumption of soft drinks (sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages) and a higher incidence of pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer isn’t one of the fun cancers (like, ah, cancer of the… nothing). Although relatively rare, the three-year survival rate for people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is about 30%, and the survival rate after five years is only 5%.
The study was based on a 14-year survey of 60,524 men and women in Singapore. Of that group, 142 people developed pancreatic cancer. Examining the lifestyles of those who did and did not develop cancer, the researchers found that people who drank two or more soft drinks a week (5 was the average) had an 87% increase in their chances of getting cancer. And because Singapore is a fairly wealthy country with good health care, the scientists think that the results could apply fairly well to western countries as well.
Oh, no! Right? I can’t give up RC Cola!
Well… eh. The thing to keep in mind is it’s all very complicated. Even if there was a direct link between sift drink consumption and pancreatic cancer, your chances of developing the cancer, even as a soda drinker, would still be very small. But, the thing is, there isn’t necessarily a direct link between the two; there’s an association here, but maybe not a causal link. That is, people who drink soda are more likely to get pancreatic cancer, but we don’t know it’s the soda that causes the cancer.
Soft drink consumption itself was associated with behavior like smoking and red meat consumption, so it’s difficult to say that it’s just the soft-drinking (as it were) that contributes to the increased cancer risk.
Researchers do think, however, that it’s possible that soda could be involved in a causal relationship with the cancer. The high sugar levels in soda probably contribute to increased insulin production and presence in the body, which may contribute to pancreatic cancer cell growth. The study also found, however, that there was no association between fruit juice consumption and pancreatic cancer, which sort of makes me wonder. Lots of fruit juice, after all, is very sugary (even if it’s not quite so sweet as most soda). So does it have something to do with the type of sweetener used? Most soda in this country is sweetened with corn syrup, but that’s not necessarily the case in other countries (see Coca Cola for an example), and there’s some debate as to how the body might react to different sweeteners.
Anyway, you aren’t completely taking your life in your hands if you finish that can of Fresca. (Fresca was probably a bad example, seeing as how it uses artificial sweeteners, and will probably give you a totally different kind of cancer.) You’re better off just taking the dip out of your mouth. It’s gross with Fresca anyhow.
