Category Biology/Biotechnology

Killer T cells surround a cancer cell. Credit: NIH

New research from The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai identifies a protein that may be an unexplored target to develop new cancer therapies. The protein, known as kinase suppressor of Ras, or KSR, is a pseudoenzyme that plays a critical role in the transmission of signals in the cell determining whether cells grow, divide, or die. The findings show that targeting KSR could have important therapeutic implications, potentially improving outcomes in many aggressing cancers such as lung and pancreatic cancer.

Ras is the most frequently mutated human cancer gene (oncogene), yet despite recent breakthroughs, therapeutic options to target Ras-dependent cancers remain limited...

Midlife Physical Activity and Cognition Later in Life: A Prospective Twin Study. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2016; 1 DOI: 10.3233/JAD-160377

Moderately vigorous physical activity – i.e., more strenuous than walking – to be associated with better cognition in a 25-year follow-up study of 3050 twins from the Finnish Twin Cohort. The association was statistically independent of hypertension, smoking, education level, sex, obesity, binge drinking. “This suggests that the beneficial influence of physical activity on the brain and cognition is not solely based on decreasing vascular risk factors,” says Paula Iso-Markku from the University of Helsinki.

The association was studied first in all individuals of the cohort, and then by comparing later cognition in pairs where one twin was more phy...

Dr Katie Meehan from UWA’s School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine is leading the project, which is currently recruiting participants with breast cancer.

Researchers at The University of Western Australia are working on a quick, simple and less invasive blood-based test that can detect breast cancer progression or relapse much earlier than current methods such as mammogram, MRI or biopsy. Dr Meehan said through testing before, during and after treatment, the researchers intended to develop a new test that would improve cancer progression, monitoring and health outcomes.
“Women in rural and remote areas would benefit significantly from the new diagnostic blood test to monitor for low levels of residual or recurrent disease,” Dr Meehan said.

“Currently it’s costly, time-consuming and p...

Formation and function of microRNAs

A tiny RNA appears to play a role in producing major depression, the mental disorder that affects as many as 250 million people a year worldwide. Major depression, formally known as major depressive disorder, or MDD, brings increased risk of suicide and is reported to cause the second-most years of disability after low-back pain.

MicroRNA levels are significantly elevated in the brains of experimental rats with induced depression from corticosterone treatment, in the post-death brains of humans diagnosed with MDD and in peripheral blood serum from living patients with MDD, according to a study by led by Prof Yogesh Dwivedi, Ph.D.
This microRNA—miR-124-3p—is thus a potential therapeutic target for novel drug development, and it can serve as a putative bio...