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An emerging nanomedicine cancer treatment involving the injection of tiny nanoparticles carrying compounds that can poison cancerous cells has many benefits. This so-called photodynamic therapy (PDT) is non-toxic and it doesn't involve invasive surgery. A team led by Jan van Hest from Eindhoven University of Technology in collaboration with researchers from China and the UK have designed a new PDT nanoparticle that attack cancerous cells in a novel way: they enter cells and shut down their power stations—their mitochondria—making the therapy much more effective. This new research has been published in Angewandte Chemie. Imagine a city powered by a group...

A common virus that is harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in the body and might be developed into a new cancer therapy, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. The virus, called adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2, infects an estimated 80 percent of the population. "Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells," said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania. "We believe...

Shape is the critical concept. Like all proteins, ligands and receptors are made up of many different amino acids strung together like pearls and folded into distinct three-dimensional shapes. A ligand with the right shape fits its matching receptor like a key fits a lock. By using sophisticated molecular engineering techniques, the researchers can change the lineup of amino acids in a ligand, essentially making millions of keys that they then screen to see which might unlock its matching receptor in some desirable way. A key that fits better and trips the lock more efficiently -scientists call this a superagonist—might...

Isreali researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) found a molecule that can induce the self-destruction of pancreatic cancer cells. The research was conducted in human pancreatic cancer that was transplanted into mice. The mice were treated with a molecule called PJ34, which affects human cancer cells. This molecule causes an anomaly during the duplication of human cancer cells and prompts their self-destruction, and the treated cells died during their multiplication process. The treatment reduced the number of cancer cells by 90% in the developed tumors a month after it was administered. Pancreatic cancer is resistant to all existing treatments and...

Doctors have used focused ultrasound to destroy tumors without invasive surgery for some time. However, the therapeutic ultrasound used in clinics today indiscriminately damages cancer and healthy cells alike. Most forms of ultrasound-based therapies either use high-intensity beams to heat and destroy cells or special contrast agents that are injected prior to ultrasound, which can shatter nearby cells. Heat can harm healthy cells as well as cancer cells, and contrast agents only work for a minority of tumors. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology and City of Hope Beckman Research Institute have developed a low-intensity ultrasound approach that exploits...

In late 2015, Bob Minetti started feeling stomach pains that mysteriously came and went and moved to his lower back. Extensive testing led to one of the most dire of diagnoses: pancreatic cancer. And the small tumor was lodged against a key blood vessel, so it couldn't be surgically removed. Minetti, a retired academic fundraiser from South Natick, Massachusetts, enrolled in a clinical trial at Massachusetts General Hospital that included a powerful newer chemotherapy, called FOLFIRINOX. The tumor, which he thought of as about the size of a hard candy, responded dramatically. "It's really shrunk like butter in the microwave,"...

Sally joined a trial at Baylor College of Medicine using a therapy called CAR T. First, doctors removed some of Sally's T-cells, infection fighting white blood cells, and genetically modified them to recognize her sarcoma cancer as being enemy cells that should be destroyed. Millions of those new cells were then put back in Sally's body, ready to search out and destroy the cancer. Of 10 patients, three have stable disease and two, including Naser, have no evidence of cancer. Two CAR T therapies are already FDA approved for forms of leukemia and lymphoma. The next hurdle is proving it...

Scientists devised a pinpointed immunotherapy regimen that eradicated tumors throughout the body in mice. Credit: Sagiv-Barfi et al., Science Translational Medicine (2018) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Representation of the organic-osmium compound, which is triggered using a non-toxic dose of sodium formate, a natural product found in many organisms, including nettles and ants. Credit: Dr James Coverdale/University of Warwick ================================================================================================================== Cancer cells can be destroyed more effectively and selectively with a unique new reusable treatment, activated with a substance found in stinging nettles and ants—thanks to new research by the University of Warwick. Led by Professor Peter J. Sadler from Warwick's Department of Chemistry, researchers have developed a new line of attack against cancer: an organic-osmium compound, which is triggered using a non-toxic dose of sodium formate,...

American regulators granted approval on Wednesday to a gene-altering treatment for patients suffering from lymphoma, the second-ever approval for a gene therapy procedure and one that could revolutionize how we fight cancer. The drug, named Yescarta, was developed by Israeli-founded Kite Pharma and it is expected to cost some $373,000, likely generating hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. Kite was purchased by Gilead Sciences in August to the tune of $11.9 billion, and today’s breakthrough may have helped with the sale. The price of Yescarta is set below that of comparable treatments, according to Reuters, as Novartis AG’s gene...

This image depicts the structure of the BAX protein (purple). The activator compound BTSA1 (orange) has bound to the active site of BAX (green), changing the shape of the BAX molecule at several points (shown in yellow, magenta and cyan). BAX, once in its final activated form, can home in on mitochondria and puncture their outer membranes, triggering apoptosis (cell death). Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine ******************************************************************************** Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach, described in today's issue of...

In the rich world, cancer therapy is expensive. In the developing world, it may not be available at all. Not only is cutting-edge technology in short supply, but so are things like electricity and medical personnel. The lack of necessary resources for basic healthcare is made obvious by the fact that, if diagnosed with cancer, a person in the developing world is more likely to die from it than a person in the developed world. To help alleviate this problem, cheap, uncomplicated, portable, and preferably non-surgical treatments that do not require electricity are needed. Now, a team of researchers from...

A man with deadly brain cancer that had spread to his spine saw his tumors shrink and, for a time, completely vanish after a novel treatment to help his immune system attack his disease — another first in this promising field. The type of immunotherapy that 50-year-old Richard Grady received already has helped some people with blood cancers such as leukemia. But the way he was given it is new, and may allow its use not just for brain tumors but also other cancers that can spread, such as breast and lung. Grady was the first person to get the...

Chemotherapy warning as hundreds die from cancer-fighting drugs (cancer drugs may kill up to 50 % patients) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/30/chemotherapy-warning-as-hundreds-die-from-cancer-fighting-drugs/ Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 30 August 2016 Patients should be warned about the dangers of chemotherapy after research showed that cancer drugs are killing up to 50 per cent of patients in some hospitals. For the first time researchers looked at the numbers of cancer patients who died within 30 days of starting chemotherapy, which indicates that the medication is the cause of death, rather than the cancer. In Milton Keynes the death rate for lung cancer treatment was 50.9 per cent,...

In the early 20th century, the German biochemist Otto Warburg believed that tumors could be treated by disrupting their source of energy. His idea was dismissed for decades — until now... Theodor Boveri discovered that if he fertilized sea-urchin eggs with two sperm rather than one, some of the cells would end up with the wrong number of chromosomes and fail to develop properly....Boveri was aware that cancer cells, had abnormal chromosomes; whatever caused cancer, had something to do with chromosomes. ... Otto Warburg's... research, was hailed as a major breakthrough in our understanding of cancer..... Warburg was focused on...

Mammograms showing a normal breast (left) and a breast with cancer (right). Credit: Public Domain ============================================================================================================== Cancer cells often devise ways to survive even in the presence of toxic chemotherapy. Now, a research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found a way to attack a process that tumor cells use to escape the effects of standard cancer drugs. The discovery is published online today in the journal Nature Cell Biology. Cancer drugs are no longer limited to toxic chemicals that can cause significant side effects. Many are specially designed targeted therapies that seek out...

This would be a ping list for survivors and caregivers to share information with each other on treatments. If you are interested in your name being added to this ping list, please post below.

Scientists have developed breakthrough drugs that cure skin cancer. The treatment is already having “spectacular” effects in seriously ill melanoma patients—and could soon be used to defeat other types of cancer. … One in six patients ravaged by deadly skin cancer are already being cured by the drugs, the European Cancer Congress was told yesterday, with the possibility of more than half being saved with an new combination. … The first is ipilimumab—or “IPI”. According to research presented to the European congress in Amsterdam yesterday, 17 percent of patients are cured by this drug alone. But many more—perhaps more than...

Was your PSA test slightly high, your Pap smear “not quite right”, your mammogram funny? Did your CT scan detect a teeny weenie nodule and your doctor schedule a biopsy? Cancer!! That’s what they say! You end up with the painful treatment and are proclaimed a “cancer survivor”. But was it cancer? Early detection of cancer Since ages, doctors say, that early detection leads to treatment in time, as the cancer spread will be slowed with timely diagnosis. Whether it was the prostrate, lung, breast or thyroid , that’s what the theory stated. The question is- was the cancer actually...

At the age of 17 I was paying attention in college, but still enjoying the student life as much as studying towards my career goals. What I wasn’t doing was working at the cutting edge of cancer treatment and developing a potential cure. Angela Zhang is, and she’s just been awarded the $100,000 Grand Prize in the Individual category of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Her project was entitled “Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.” Her creation is being heralded as a “Swiss army knife of cancer...