News by Subject Medicine & Health

Efforts to prevent human exposure to asbestos may be mobilizing the cancer-causing mineral so that it can reach water supplies, based on new findings about how the fibers move through soil.

Researchers Michael Knitz and radiation oncologist and University of Colorado Cancer Center member Sana Karam, MD, PhD, address cold tumors in new research published this week in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. Working with mouse models in Karam's specialty area of head and neck cancers, Knitz and Karam studied the role of T cells in tumor treatment.

The results of the Phase I NRG-BR001 trial, conducted by the NCI National Clinical Trials Network group NRG Oncology, indicate that stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) treatment in standard doses was safe for 35 evaluable patients with a median of 3 metastases. There were no dose-limiting toxicities and over 50% of trial participants were alive at 2 years following treatment.

The use of a novel esophagus-sparing technique reduces the rate of severe inflammation of the esophagus in patients with localized lung cancer receiving high-dose radiation and concurrent chemotherapy. Severe esophagitis was reduced despite tumors located within 1 centimeter of the esophagus, with no increased risk in local tumor recurrence.

Researchers at Gladstone Institutes, UC San Francisco, and UC Berkeley have developed a more efficient method than ever before to simultaneously map the specialized diversity and spatial location of individual cells within a tissue or a tumor. The technique, called XYZeq, was described online this week in the journal Science Advances. This offers new insight into the organization of tissues and the interplay between different cell types during disease, including in cancers.

An international team led by a Skoltech researcher has developed a method of fabrication for biodegradable polymer microcapsules, made more efficient by turning to an unusual source of inspiration - traditional Russian dumpling, or pelmeni, making. 

Notch proteins are key regulators of growth and differentiation of both normal and cancer cells. Researchers in Turku, Finland, have now demonstrated that the activities of distinct Notch family members are modified differently by phosphorylation. These results can be used in the development of new cancer treatments, especially for hormone-dependent breast cancer.

With an artificial intelligence (AI) method developed by researchers at Aalto University and University of Helsinki, researchers can now link immune cells to their targets and for example uncouple which white blood cells recognize SARS-CoV-2. The developed tool has broad applications in understanding the function of immune system in infections, autoimmune disorders, and cancer.