More Cancer Research

[Guest guest]

Feb. 9, 2011................Experts believe stapled peptides could treat a wide

variety of health problems, including cancer and inflammatory, metabolic and

infectious diseases. As evidence of the technology's promise, a company formed

in 2005 to commercialize a ruthenium-based stapling method developed at Harvard

University has reportedly raised about $60 million in venture capital and landed

a deal with pharmaceutical giant Roche that could be worth more than $1 billion

over time.

" The field is large enough for multiple players, " Lin said. " Stapling is a

technology that many people believe will create a new class of drug therapies,

hitting new targets that other therapies can't. Lin and his group are

particularly interested in developing anti-cancer therapeutics that increase the

efficacy of chemotherapy by instructing cancer cells to self-destruct through

" programmed cell death, " a process called apoptosis.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216040.php

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WHAT AM I?

• Weakness or feeling tired.

• Fever.

• Easy bruising or bleeding.

• Petechiae (flat, pinpoint spots under the skin caused by bleeding).

• Shortness of breath.

• Weight loss or loss of appetite.

• Pain in the bones or stomach.

• Pain or feeling of fullness below the ribs.

• Painless lumps in the neck, underarm, stomach, or groin.

This is a description of ALL, sound familiar?????

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February 9, 2011............A new cancer treatment which strengthens a patient's

immune system and enables them to fight the disease more effectively is being

trialled on patients for the first time in the UK.

The treatment will use a new DNA vaccine, developed by scientists from the

University of Southampton, which will treat a selected group of volunteers who

have either chronic or acute myeloid leukaemia - two forms of bone marrow and

blood cancer.

Scientists believe they can control the disease by vaccinating patients against

a cancer-associated gene (Wilm's Tumour gene 1), found 'expressed' in almost all

chronic and acute leukaemias.

A team of researchers and health practitioners, led by Professor Christian

Ottensmeier of the University of Southampton Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre

and Dr Katy Rezvani of Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare

NHS Trust, hope to recruit up to 180 patients to the trial which will take place

at hospitals in Southampton, London and Exeter over the next two years.

The research is funded by the charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and the

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) programme, which is financed by the

Medical Research Council (MRC) and managed by the National Institute for Health

Research (NIHR).

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216040.php

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GVHD

A protein that protects stem cells in the gut relieves a potentially lethal

complication of bone marrow transplantation in mice, according to a study

published online on January 31 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Bone marrow transplantation can cure diseases such as leukemia but it can also

lead to a potentially fatal complication known as graft-versus-host disease

(GVHD). A group led by Takanori Teshima at Kyushu University in Japan found that

mice treated with a protein called R-spondin1 developed less severe GVHD after

bone marrow transplantation. R-spondin worked by protecting intestinal stem

cells, which help to regenerate damaged tissues and thus dampen inflammation.

Whether R-spondin1 is therapeutic for human bone marrow transplant patients

remains to be explored.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215261.php

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Surgeons at UC San Diego Health System have identified a new application for

" scarless " surgery tools that are normally used for natural orifice translumenal

endoscopic surgery (NOTES). In what is believed to be the first case in the

United States, the surgical team used an existing incision from a previous colon

surgery, through which they passed the long, flexible NOTES instruments into the

abdomen to treat metastatic liver cancer. The new technique - termed LESSOnc

(Laparo-Endoscopic Single-Site Oncologic surgery) by the team - promises to be a

new surgical option for patients with certain liver cancers.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215968.php

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PROGRAMMING BLOOD CELLS

By coaxing healthy and diseased human bone marrow to become embryonic-like stem

cells, a team of Wisconsin scientists has laid the groundwork for observing the

onset of the blood cancer leukemia in the laboratory dish.

" This is the first successful reprogramming of blood cells obtained from a

patient with leukemia, " says University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell

researcher Igor Slukvin, who directed a study aimed at generating all-purpose

stem cells from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. " We were able to turn the

diseased cells back into pluripotent stem cells. This is important because it

provides a new model for the study of cancer cells. "

This research was reported in the journal Blood by Slukvin and colleagues from

the WiCell Research Institute and the Morgridge Institute for Research, private

research centers in Madison.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/215703.php

FYI,

Lottie Duthu