(GOODYEAR, Arizona -- June 3, 2016) -- Advances in lung cancer, ovarian cancer and new immunotherapy treatments are among the scientific studies presented this year at ASCO by Dr. Glen Weiss, Director of Clinical Research at Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) at Western Regional Medical Center (Western).
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Testing for metabolic changes in the blood could indicate whether a cancer drug is working as designed, a new study reports.
Scientists have found that measuring how cancer treatment affects the levels of metabolites - the building blocks of fats and proteins - can be used to assess whether the drug is hitting its intended target.
This new way of monitoring cancer therapy could speed up the development of new targeted drugs - which exploit specific genetic weaknesses in cancer cells - and help in tailoring treatment for patients.
In Switzerland alone, more than 5,700 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and almost 1,400 of those affected die of the disease. In many very invasive forms of breast cancer, the cells have too much of the receptor HER2 on their surface. This leads to uncontrolled growth of the cells. Various antibodies such as trastuzumab and pertuzumab, which recognize the HER2 receptor, have been used in breast cancer therapy for many years now. However, these antibodies do not kill off the cancer cells.
HANOVER, N.H. - Dartmouth College scientists have discovered that marine microalgae can completely replace the wild fish oil currently used to feed tilapia, the second most farmed fish in the world and the most widely farmed in the United States.
Washington, DC - June 6, 2016 - Crows are smart, highly social animals that congregate in flocks of tens of thousands. Such large, highly concentrated populations can easily spread disease -- not only amongst their own species, but quite possibly to humans, either via livestock, or directly.
A competitive economy fuelled by innovation is the ambition of many nations today -- developed and developing alike.
But is there a formula for creating an environment in which innovation and entrepreneurialism is fostered and rewarded, generating sustainable jobs and propelling national prosperity?
Looking to demonstrate the answer is Dr. Hayat Sindi, a medical scientist of growing global renown who founded and leads the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity (i2institute.org) in her homeland, Saudi Arabia.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Living cells are capable of performing complex computations on the environmental signals they encounter.
These computations can be continuous, or analogue, in nature -- the way eyes adjust to gradual changes in the light levels. They can also be digital, involving simple on or off processes, such as a cell's initiation of its own death.
Synthetic biological systems, in contrast, have tended to focus on either analogue or digital processing, limiting the range of applications for which they can be used.
It's time to say goodbye to ineffective and costly cancer treatments. Japanese scientists have found unique genetic alterations that could indicate whether expensive immune checkpoint inhibitors would be effective for a particular patient.
Programmed-death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a protein that tells the immune system not to kill a particular cell. Publishing in Nature, a recent study reports that genetic alterations affecting a part of the PD-L1 gene increases the production of the protein, allowing cancer cells to escape detection by the immune system.
Antibodies to native double-stranded DNA are present in the blood of healthy people, but their level is increased manifold in patients with autoimmune diseases, when the human immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissues. Symptoms of these diseases can affect many different body systems, including joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, heart, and lungs.
Joint research between scientists from Kumamoto University, Japan and Imperial College London, UK has revealed the mechanisms of persistent latent infection of the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1). This is an important achievement that may contribute to the prevention of refractory leukemia, a form of leukemia in which leukemic cells do not respond well to treatment.
A novel method for adding liquid by-products from the wood industry into wood-plastic composites (WPCs) prior to manufacturing was developed in a new study from the University of Eastern Finland. The study also discovered that proton-transfer-reaction mass-spectrometry (PTR-MS) is a suitable method for measuring the amounts of volatile organic compounds, VOCs, released from WPCs.
Wood-plastic composites -- replacing plastics with wood
Bosses play no role in fostering a sense of meaningfulness at work - but they do have the capacity to destroy it and should stay out of the way, new research shows.
The study by researchers at the University of Sussex and the University of Greenwich shows that quality of leadership receives virtually no mention when people describe meaningful moments at work, but poor management is the top destroyer of meaningfulness.
Ramucirumab (trade name: Cyramza) is a monoclonal antibody, which blocks a receptor, reducing the growth of blood vessels and so reducing blood supply to the tumours. This aims to slow the growth of the tumours. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined in two early benefit assessments whether the drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapies for adult patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC) or with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
New research reveals that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was a strong, negative predictor of sexual satisfaction in both male and female veterans who returned from warzones in recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
For the Journal of Traumatic Stress study, investigators assessed 1581 males and females from the Veterans After-Discharge Longitudinal Registry (VALOR), a gender-balanced registry of VA healthcare-seeking veterans with and without PTSD.
In collaboration with Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., scientists from Aarhus University have used X-rays to understand how the therapeutic antibody eculizumab prevents our immune system from destroying red blood cells and damaging kidney tissue.
The scientists in Aarhus studied an important protein from the innate immune system called C5 which is cleaved by enzymes when pathogens invade our body as a defense mechanism. The two C5 fragments formed through this cleavage recruit immune cells to fight the pathogen and may directly kill it.