Body

Pertuzumab (trade name: Perjeta) is approved for two therapeutic indications. Its use in combination with trastuzumab and docetaxel in adult patients with HER2-positive metastatic or locally recurrent unresectable breast cancer was already investigated by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in a dossier assessment in 2013. This assessment resulted in a survival advantage for certain patients and hence for a hint of a major added benefit.

Dec. 3, 2015 -- Researchers in Taiwan have identified a biomarker that detects the most common lung cancer in its earliest stage. The discovery could one day change how long lung cancer patients live.

According to theNational Cancer Institute, lung cancer kills about 158,000 Americans each year -- as many as the next 4 most deadly cancers combined. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for about 85 percent of all lung cancers.

There's growing recognition that the trillions of microbes living in and on the human body--collectively known as the microbiome--play a critical role in health and disease. However, very little is known about how the diversity of those microbes might vary among different groups of people, and whether and how those variations might play into well-recognized health disparities.

Turns out dads are also eating for two. A study published December 3 in Cell Metabolism reveals that a man's weight affects the heritable information contained in sperm. The sperm cells of lean and obese men possess different epigenetic marks, notable at gene regions associated with the control of appetite. The comparisons, which included 13 lean men and 10 obese men, offer one biological explanation for why children of obese fathers are themselves more predisposed to obesity.

Mirko Trajkovski's team, at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, demonstrated few weeks ago that the absence of gut microbiota can be linked to increased brown fat activation as a mean of limiting obesity. Today, pursuing their research, the scientists show that mice exposed to cold experience a sharp shift in their microbiota composition, rendering them leaner and more sensitive to insulin. Transplantation of this cold-modified microbiota to germ-free mice is sufficient to enable complete tolerance to cold.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have mapped the genome of an unusually short-lived fish, paving the way for scientists to use the organism to study how genes influence longevity.

Spreading cancer cells arriving in a new part of the body must be able to change their new environment to continue to grow, according to a study by Cancer Research UK scientists at the Francis Crick Institute, published in Cell Reports.

The team found that the faster their surroundings change, the faster the cancer cells will grow.

A cancer cell that has spread to another part of the body needs help from the tissue that surrounds it to become established and form a new tumour. When a cell has the environment it needs, it will start to grow.

Scientists have discovered a 'master switch' within cancer cells that seems to override the normal stress response and allows them to survive conditions that would normally be lethal.

The mechanism could be critical in allowing cancer cells to withstand the huge amounts of stress they come under as they divide rapidly and their metabolism goes into overdrive.

The master switch, which is described today (Thursday) in the prestigious journal Cell, appears to play a key role in lung and breast cancer, and could be a promising target for future cancer drugs.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - It's a genetic detective story with a distinct 21st-century flavor. A geneticist from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in the United States has used powerful internet and social media tools to find doctors and researchers in nine U.S. states and eight other nations to help him confirm, document and describe in precise clinical detail a new genetic syndrome in young boys that he first came across five years ago.

Kansas City, MO - During the holidays, we often remember the past and create new memories. But, why do some memories fade away while others last forever? Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified a possible biochemical mechanism by which the specialized brain cells known as neurons create and maintain a long-term memory from a fleeting experience.

In 1048 prostate cancer patients previously treated with docetaxel and 996 metastatic, castration-resistant patients, treatment with the androgen-lowering drug abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) led to longer overall disease control, even when a very high Gleason score indicated especially aggressive cancer.

Extremely rare and hidden in the forests of the Andes, there are still new snake species left to find. This has recently been evidenced by the colubrid serpent, described for the first time in the present article. Moreover, there is the vicious circle enwrapping its relatives: the harder it is to find more specimens, the tougher it is to describe and thus, start to identify them, which does not help in mapping their distribution and habitats. To address this issue, Dr. R.

December 3, 2015 - People who have a higher sense of purpose in life are at lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease, reports a pooled data analysis in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

By attaching a hydrogen peroxide reporter protein to cellular microtubule structures, researchers have developed the first sensor able to show the location of the key cellular signaling chemical inside living cells with high resolution over time.

Municipal water problems of yesteryear: The well's going dry. Dig deeper.

Municipal water problems of today: Megacities with millions of thirsty residents and water guzzling infrastructures exhaust nearby sources and start pulling water from aquifers, reservoirs, and farmlands far away. Getting that water is so complicated that impacts are largely unknown.