chemotherapy tagged posts

An immunotherapy drug given before surgery instead of chemotherapy meant that over ten times more patients with a certain genetic profile were cancer-free after surgery, according to clinical trial results presented by researchers at UCL and UCLH.

The findings, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2024, are interim results from the NEOPRISM-CRC phase II clinical trial assessing whether the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab can improve outcomes for patients with stage two or stage three MMR deficient/MSI-High bowel cancer. The trial was a collaboration among UCL, UCLH, the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, St...

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London have discovered two new genes that cause head and neck cancer patients to be resistant to chemotherapy, and that silencing either gene can make cancer cells previously unresponsive to chemotherapy subsequently respond to it.

The two genes discovered actively ‘work’ in most human cancer types, meaning the findings could potentially extend to other cancers with elevated levels of the genes.

The researchers also looked through a chemical library, commonly used for drug discovery, and found two substances that could target the two genes specifically and make resistant cancer cells almost 30 times more sensitive to a common chemotherapy drug called cisplatin...

Overall structure of human PrimPol ternary complex with template-primer DNA and incoming dATP. The N-helix and modules ModN and ModC are shown in cartoon representation in dark blue, yellow, and cyan, respectively. The DNA is shown as gray sticks, and the Ca2+ ion is shown as a light blue sphere. The templating base T and the incoming dATP are shown in red. Yellow and cyan dashed lines depict unstructured regions in the ModN and ModC, respectively. The side chains of key catalytic active-site residues Asp114, Glu116, and Asp280 are highlighted in red. Secondary structure elements (α helices and β strands) are labeled in black.

A research team led by scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) has solved the 3D structure of a key protein that helps damaged cellular D...

Highlights •IFN-γ and 4D5 act directly on erbB2-positive breast cancer cells •IFN-γ, but not IFN-α or β, cooperates with 4D5 directly on erbB2+ breast cancer cells •IFN-γ and 4D5 alters KLF4 levels and degrades Snail by the GSK3-β/proteasome pathway •Sequential combination treatment with mAb and IFN-γ sensitizes for tumor eradication. Credit: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2015.08.044

This therapy, when translated for use in people humans, would be beneficial in reducing toxicity because the amount of antibody could be decreased by 2/3 and the amount of chemotherapy by at least 1/2, they say. This in turn, “reduces the cost of treatment so that individuals previously not able to afford targeted therapy will be able to do so.

“This line of research is important to future ...