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For the first time ever, three pharmaceutical companies are poised to test whether new drugs can work against a wide range of cancers independently of where they originated — breast, prostate, liver, lung. The drugs go after an aberration involving a cancer gene fundamental to tumor growth. Many scientists see this as the beginning of a new genetic age in cancer research. Great uncertainties remain, but such drugs could mean new treatments for rare, neglected cancers, as well as common ones. Merck, Roche and Sanofi are racing to develop their own versions of a drug they hope will restore a...

THE HYPOTHESIS Human papillomavirus may increase the chances of heart disease by suppressing an important gene. THE INVESTIGATOR Dr. Kenichi Fujise, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and colleagues. A new study suggests that a common sexually transmitted virus already linked to cancer may also cause cardiovascular disease. Women infected with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, are two to three times as likely as uninfected women to have had a heart attack or stroke, according to a report published on Monday in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology. HPV is known to cause cancer of the cervix,...

Protein aggregation, generally associated with Alzheimer’s and mad cow disease, turns out to play a significant role in cancer. In a paper published in Nature Chemical Biology, Frederic Rousseau and Joost Schymkowitz of VIB, K.U.Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel describe that certain mutations of p53, an important tumor suppressor, cause the protein to misfold in a way that the proteins start to aggregate. This not only disrupts the protective function of normal p53, but of other related proteins as well.p53 plays a central role in protection against cancer In the study, the focus was on the p53 protein which plays...

Nature Reviews Cancer 9, 691-700 (October 2009) | doi:10.1038/nrc2715 Abstract Although metabolic alterations have been observed in cancer for almost a century, only recently have the mechanisms underlying these changes been identified and the importance of metabolic transformation realized. p53 has been shown to respond to metabolic changes and to influence metabolic pathways through several mechanisms. The contributions of these activities to tumour suppression are complex and potentially rather surprising: some reflect the function of basal p53 levels that do not require overt activation and others might even promote, rather than inhibit, tumour progression...

Knocking out genes with a role in cancer prevention helps produce stem cells.Switching off the p53 pathway helped researchers to make stem-like cells.Wikimedia Commons Specialized adult cells made 'immortal' through the blockade of an antitumour pathway can be turned into stem-like cells quickly and efficiently.The findings — which should make it easier to generate patient-specific cells from any tissue type, including certain diseased cells that have proved difficult to transform — suggest that cellular reprogramming and cancer formation are inextricably linked.Since 2006, when Shinya Yamanaka of Japan's Kyoto University first created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells1 — which can develop...

Scientists say they have discovered a missing link in the way cells protect themselves against cancer.Zebrafish share the p53 gene with humans They have uncovered how cells switch a gene called p53, which can block the development of tumours, on and off. The researchers say the finding has important implications for cancer treatment and diagnosis. The study, published in Genes And Development, was carried out by teams of scientists in Singapore and the University of Dundee. Discovering how it is regulated will have incredibly important implications in the development of better drugs and ways to diagnose cancer Lesley WalkerCancer Research...

Close window Published online: 6 September 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060904-8 Tuning the body's defence to cancerTurning off our natural killer could help to reduce chemotherapy side effects.Lucy Heady Surprise: the guardian of the genome works differently than thought, according to tests in mice.Punchstock A fundamental shift in our understanding of the body's natural defence mechanism against cancer has revealed an odd trick: turning this weapon off during chemotherapy might actively help to reduce side effects such as hair loss. Our cells contain a protein called p53, dubbed 'the guardian of the genome', which regulates the process of DNA replication. It...