News by Subject Medicine & Health

A gene called gasdermin E, which is downregulated in many cancers, aids cells in dying in an unexpected way, and may also suppress tumor growth.

A deep-learning model developed using serial image scans of tumors from patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) predicted treatment response and survival outcomes better than standard clinical parameters.

A new study reveals that many people with cancer use marijuana, and rates of use in the US have increased over time. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study also found that patients with cancer are more likely to use prescription opioids than adults without cancer.

Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) scientists teamed up with colleagues from the UK and Mauritius and experimentally demonstrated that extracts of the endemic (i.e. growing only on this island) medicinal herb leaves Acalypha integrifolia, Eugenia tinifolia, and Labourdonnaisia glauca stop the proliferation of esophageal squamous carcinoma cells, ones of the most deadly cancer type worldwide. A related article is published in the Acta Naturae journal.

Identifying a protein that plays a key role in cancer cell growth is a first step toward the development of a targeted cancer therapy. It is especially promising when this protein is dispensable for the growth of normal cells. Their discovery that UNC45A fits these criteria has researchers, led by Dr. Ahmed Chadli, of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University, excited about potential new cancer therapeutic strategies involving the inhibition of UNC45A.

A low-tech problem troubles the high-tech world of digital pathology imaging: There are no reliable standards for the quality of digitized tissue slides comprising the source material for computers reading and analyzing vast numbers of images. Poor-quality slides get mixed in with accurate slides, potentially confusing a computer program trying to learn what a cancerous cell looks like. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University are trying to fix this, sharing an open-source quality control standard.

Scientists at Christiana Care Health System's Gene Editing Institute and NovellusDx, an Israeli biotechnology company, have deployed a breakthrough CRISPR gene-editing tool to successfully engineer multiple edits simultaneously to fragments of DNA extracted from a human cell, according to a new study published today in The CRISPR Journal. The tool can rapidly reproduce, in a human DNA sample, the unique and complex genetic features of an individual patient's cancer tumor.

Massachusetts General Hospital investigators have discovered the mechanism by which cells sense dysfunction of the proteasome -- a cellular component that degrades unneeded or defective proteins -- and respond in a previously undescribed manner, by editing the amino acid sequence of a key sensing protein.

A protein called p53 suppresses and kills cancer in people. However, a defective, mutant form of p53 helps cancer cells grow and multiply. Researchers at the University of Missouri have now found that a combination drug therapy reduces the spread of triple negative breast cancer to other locations of the body by 50 percent.