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The immune system can be an important ally in the fight against cancer. A study from McGill scientists published today in Science suggests that the reverse may also be true—that abnormal inflammation triggered by the immune system may underlie the development of stomach tumours in patients with a hereditary cancer syndrome known as Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome (PJS). The findings are likely […]
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Scientists at Scripps Research have uncovered a new strategy to kill tumors, including some triple-negative breast cancers, without harming healthy cells, a discovery that could lead to more ways to treat tumors while reducing side effects. The study, published recently in Nature Communications, shows that a molecule in cells, called Rad52, repairs special kinds of damaged DNA that accumulate in […]
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A tumor’s goal is simple: to grow, grow, grow, by making more cancer cells. But that often means growing so fast that the oxygen supply gets scarce, at which point cells within the tumor start to suffocate. Without oxygen, these ever-dividing cells struggle to make enough aspartate, a crucial ingredient in many cellular processes. That’s the scenario worked out by […]
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The first genetic marker for the bone tumour, osteoblastoma, has been discovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators. Whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing of human bone tumours revealed that a genetic change that affects the transcription factor, FOS, is a hallmark mutation of osteoblastoma. The results, published in Nature Communications, will help clinicians correctly distinguish benign osteoblastoma […]
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Most glioblastoma tumors are marked by one or two broad mutation patterns, but about 20 percent of the lethal brain tumors have biomarkers that cannot be identified. Now scientists at Duke Cancer Institute have identified mutations for the vast majority of the remaining 20 percent of uncharacterized tumors, which tend to be especially lethal. The findings indicate that these mutations […]
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A drug given to early stage lung cancer patients before they undergo surgery showed major tumor responses in the removed tumor and an increase in anti-tumor T-cells that remained after the tumor was removed, which resulted in fewer relapse cases in the patients. The research teams at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel […]
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A new study spanning 45 years has shown that while Alaska Natives have a similar incidence of thyroid cancer as the U.S. white population, their tumors at the time of diagnosis tend to be larger and to have spread beyond a localized area. The data, culled from the National Cancer Institute’s Alaska Native Tumor Registry, are described in an article […]
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Obesity is the second-leading preventable cause of cancer and represents one of the greatest threats to global human health. But it has not been clear exactly how whole-body metabolism affects tumor formation. In particular, the molecular mechanisms by which fat cells communicate with tumor tissue remain poorly understood. Sanford Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) researchers recently addressed this question, revealing […]
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Novel technology developed at UT Health San Antonio gives rise to mouse pancreatic tumors that have the same traits as human pancreatic cancer. A U.S. patent is pending on the invention. The technology could revolutionize studies of pancreatic cancer initiation and progression and spur new drug development. An article published in the journal Carcinogenesis (Oxford University Press) describes this unique […]
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A team of researchers with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the U.S. has found that introducing an antibody into a cancerous mouse model prevented the escape of ligands from a tumor surface allowing natural killer cells to attack. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their technique and how well it […]
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