A team of researchers at Princeton University and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has identified a long-sought gene that is fatefully switched on in 30 to 40 percent of all breast cancer patients, spreading the disease, resisting traditional chemotherapies and eventually leading to death.

The gene, called "Metadherin" or MTDH, is located in a small region of human chromosome 8 and appears to be crucial to cancer's spread or metastasis because it helps tumor cells stick tightly to blood vessels in distant organs. The gene also makes tumors more resistant to the powerful chemotherapeutic agents normally used to wipe out the deadly cells.

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies say they have developed a new mouse model of glioblastoma, the most common and deadly brain cancer in humans, that more closely resembles the development and progression of human brain tumors that arise in people. 

Trying to mimic randomly occurring mutations that lie at the heart of all tumors, the Salk researchers used modified viruses to shuttle cancer-causing oncogenes into a handful of cells in adult mice. Their strategy, described in Nature Medicine, could prove a useful method to faithfully reproduce different types of tumors. 

While examining patterns of DNA modification in lung cancer, a team of international researchers has discovered what they say is a surprising new mechanism. They say that "silencing" of a single gene in lung cancer led to a general impairment in genome-wide changes in cells, contributing to cancer development and progression.

In the Cancer Research study they also say they found a link between modification of the key gene, MTHFR, and smoking by lung cancer patients – even if the patient had smoked for a short period of time. 

New research in an animal model suggests that a diet high in inorganic phosphates, which are found in a variety of processed foods including meats, cheeses, beverages, and bakery products, might speed growth of lung cancer tumors and may even contribute to the development of those tumors in individuals predisposed to the disease.

The study also suggests that dietary regulation of inorganic phosphates may play an important role in lung cancer treatment. The research, using a mouse model, was conducted by Myung-Haing Cho, D.V.M., Ph.D., and his colleagues at Seoul National University, appears in the first issue for January of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.

Scientists at The Babraham Institute have begun to unpick the complex mechanisms underpinning the development of drug resistant cancers. They have identified a novel target that may help to combat the growing problem of therapy resistant cancers and pave the way for innovative therapeutic approaches. 

Their discovery, reported in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, centres on the significance of DNA damage for both normal cells and cancer cells. It reveals that a biochemical signalling pathway, that normally ensures damaged cells are diverted towards cellular suicide, is blocked in certain cancers, rendering them resistant to certain types of treatment. 

Women should go for the broccoli when the relish tray comes around during holiday celebrations this season.

While it has been known for some time that eating cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, can help prevent breast cancer, the mechanism by which the active substances in these vegetables inhibit cell proliferation was unknown — until now.

Scientists in the UC Santa Barbara laboratories of Leslie Wilson, professor of biochemistry and pharmacology, and Mary Ann Jordan, adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, have shown how the healing power of these vegetables works at the cellular level. Their research is published in this month's journal Carcinogenesis. 

A study published today in Anticancer Research demonstrates that an ingredient used in a common cough suppressant may be useful in treating advanced prostate cancer. Researchers found that noscapine, which has been used in cough medication for nearly 50 years, reduced tumor growth in mice by 60% and limited the spread of tumors by 65% without causing harmful side effects.

You can't stop cancer.   The nature of mutations is that they aren't predictable so they can't be vaccinated against or prevented in any way we understand those terms today.   Stopping cancer from killing people is another matter.   Metastasis is the ability of cancer cells to move from a primary site to form more tumors at distant sites and it's how cancer spreads and eventually kills. It is a complex process in which cell motility and invasion play a fundamental role.

Essential to our understanding of how metastasis develops is identification of the molecules, and characterisation of the mechanisms that regulate cell motility.  These mechanisms have been poorly understood.

A possible new therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer, the most lethal form of human cancer, has been identified in the proteins whose DNA recipe comes from the gene named "Seven-In-Absentia," according to researchers at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.

In their studies with Drosophila melanogaster at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, scientists found a link between the "Seven-In-Absentia" or SINA gene and the aggressive cellular transformation, oncogenesis and metastasis that characterize pancreatic cancer.

Scientists already knew that a mutation in the K-RAS gene underlies the abnormal, excessive cell growth of pancreatic cancer.

A study led by researchers at The University of Nottingham has identified a gene that protects the body from lung cancer.

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA and funded by a £72,000 grant from the British Lung Foundation, has found that the tumor suppressor gene, LIMD1, is responsible for protecting the body from developing lung cancer — paving the way for possible new treatments and early screening techniques.

Lead researcher Dr Tyson Sharp and his University of Nottingham team, together with US collaborator Dr Greg Longmore, set out to examine if loss of the LIMD1 gene correlated with lung cancer development.

A dual-headed dedicated gamma camera used during molecular breast imaging (MBI) can accurately detect small breast tumors less than 2 cm in size, according to a study performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

One-hundred fifty patients who had suspicious lesions smaller than 2 cm in size were imaged using dual-head molecular breast imaging. “There were 128 cancers confirmed in 88 patients,” according to Carrie B. Hruska, MD, lead author of the study. “The sensitivity rate of dual-head MBI during the study was 90% (115/128)”, she said.

Cancer cells of all types have one thing in common: they have escaped the built-in controls of cell reproduction, and as a result, tumors grow as the out-of-control cells keep dividing.

This out-of-control cell division in cancer is very closely connected to a process called differentiation, the process by which a cell stops dividing and transforms itself from a stem cell into a specialized cell like a red blood cell. There is a trade-off: differentiated cells are specialized and tend to not divide; undifferentiated cells tend to divide but don't carry out specialized functions. The problem with cancer cells is that they are more like undifferentiated, dividing stem cells than the non-dividing, differentiated cells we want them to be.

Breast cancer, the leading cause of death among women in France, is the most commonly occurring cancer in women. Sporadic breast cancer, which is non-hereditary, turns out to be the most widespread, representing 85 to 90% of all cases, but remains the least well-known. Researchers at CNRS and CEA (1), working with a team from Hôpital Saint-Louis (2), have just discovered the cause of 50% of sporadic breast cancers. The results should also explain epidemiological studies which suggest that hormone treatment predisposes patients to breast cancer. The work is published in Cancer Research.

A team of researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) has found that lactic acid is an important energy source for tumor cells. In further experiments, they discovered a new way to destroy the most hard-to-kill, dangerous tumor cells by preventing them from delivering lactic acid. 

In today's world, humans are at the top of the food chain. We have almost no natural predators as there are few animals that rely on humans as prey. Pathogens are the only exception. Viruses, bacteria, parasites and other classes of infectious agents are left as natural checks upon the human race, and remain our only foreign predator (humans excluded).

Each class of pathogen is different and requires different approaches for treatment, another approach to defeat our natural enemies. We have antibiotics for bacteria, vaccines and our own immune systems for viruses, and more toxic drugs to battle parasites. But this leaves out a very large class of predator: cancer.

A new study finds that breast cancer patients who participate in intervention sessions focusing on improving mood, coping effectively, and altering health behaviors live longer than patients who do not receive such psychological support. Published in the December 15, 2008 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that reducing the stress that can accompany cancer diagnosis and treatment can have a significant impact on patients' survival.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people die from lung cancer than any other cancer type. In fact, according to 2004 data, more people died from lung cancer than breast, prostate and colon cancers combined. 

Smoking is the biggest risk factor for developing lung cancer, even after quitting for long periods of time.   But only 10% of smokers get lung cancer and almost 50% of lung cancer cases involve former smokers.   

The first time I experienced migraine with aura, I was shopping. I remember looking up at the fluorescent lighting overhead and wondering where that weird triangle rainbow was coming from. An hour later, I was in tears and curled up in my bed with all the lights out--I have a low threshold for pain.

After that, Excedrin became my constant companion, along with nausea and a nagging pain pushing down on my skull. I started a headache diary in an effort to avoid "triggers" that might cause my migraines: bacon, poor sleep habits, strong odors. I even kept a cold pack in the freezer just in case.

National Nanotech Conference To Be Held At U of Albany On November 7^th

The University of Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, along with Empire State Science and Technology, will present the “Symposium on the Convergence of Bio/Nanotechnology and Medicine” tomorrow, November 7^th, beginning at 8:30 am. The event will be held at the U of Albany Nanotech complex, in the NanoFab 300 South wing until 4:45 pm.

The conference aims to bring together distinguished scientists, physicians, engineers and other individuals in the nanotech sector to discuss the latest and greatest developments in their field, with a focus on nanomedicine and nanoelectronics.

Honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Month, doctors and scientists have turned toward the examination of simpler techniques for outwitting cancer growth and progression. The next cancer treatment may not be a new gamut of drugs aimed to block cancer cell metabolism, bacteria bred to eat cancer or mutant immunoglobulin that will cure us of our tumors; it may simply be cold treatment to freeze cancer tissues.