Category Health/Medical

Researchers have discovered that the drug pioglitazone, used to treat diabetes, shows some ability to halt the overexpression of the protein NAF-1, which has been associated with the proliferation of breast cancer. (Credit: Illustration by Fang Bai/Rice University)

Dialing down the level of the protein NAF-1 and the activity of the iron-sulfur clusters it transports may be key to halting tumor growth. The researchers suggest a drug that is typically used to treat type 2 diabetes, pioglitazone, has proven effective at controlling NAF-1 levels. They also discovered that a single mutation to NAF-1 almost completely blocked the ability of cancer cells to proliferate, a result they said supports the idea that lowering NAF-1 expression can help stop tumors...

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...