tumors tagged posts

Researchers find a New Class of Biomarkers to Predict Treatment Outcomes in Cancer Patients

Researchers find a new of biomarkers to predict treatment outcomes in cancer patients
Cancer is the result of the uncontrolled division and spread of cells into surrounding tissue. Recently researchers have begun to focus on biomarkers as a source of information about different cancers, how they work in the body, and how they can be fought. Credit: Colin Behrens/Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

One of the big reasons that cancer is difficult to treat is that patients respond to treatments differently, and these differences can rarely be anticipated. In most cases, determining whether and how a patient will respond to any given therapy requires administering it to the patient and then waiting and watching. That is a lot of pressure for researchers and physicians and a lot of risk for cancer patients, and added expense.

If a patient’s response were predictable, optimal thera...

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Engineered Killer Immune Cells Target Tumors and their Immunosuppressive Allies

D-L1 CAR haNKs demonstrated superior killing of murine HNSCC targets compared to haNKs.

Scientists have engineered natural killer immune cells that not only kill head and neck tumour cells in mice but also reduce the immune-suppressing myeloid cells that allow tumours to evade the immune response, according to a new study in eLife.

The engineered cell therapy could be used as an alternative approach for treating cancer in patients for whom previous immunotherapy based on the activation of T cells has failed. These findings are reported by researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

In recent years, treatments called T-cell therapy or CAR-T cell therapy have been approved to treat blood cancers, and many others are now in development for othe...

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Simply Shining Light on ‘Dinosaur Metal’ compound Kills Cancer Cells

Iridium with its organic coat which is hooked up to the protein albumin (HSA). Together that enter cancer cells and deliver the iridium photosensitizer to the nucleus. On irradiation with blue light, the iridium not only glows green, but converts oxygen in the cell to a toxic form called triplet oxygen, which kills the cell.
Credit: University of Warwick

A new compound based on Iridium, a rare metal which landed in the Gulf of Mexico 66 M years ago, hooked onto albumin, a protein in blood, can attack the nucleus of cancerous cells when switched on by light, University of Warwick researchers have found...

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Where did it all go wrong? Scientists identify ‘Cell of Origin’ in Skin Cancers

The green-labelled cells show a basal cell carcinoma in mouse tail epidermis derived from a single mutant stem cell and expanding out of the normal epidermis stained in red. Credit: Adriana Sánchez-Danés

The green-labelled cells show a basal cell carcinoma in mouse tail epidermis derived from a single mutant stem cell and expanding out of the normal epidermis stained in red. Credit: Adriana Sánchez-Danés

Scientists have identified for the first time the ‘cell of origin’ – in ie the first cell from which the cancer grows – in basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, and followed the chain of events that lead to the growth of these invasive tumours. Our skin is kept healthy by a constant turnover. The process is maintained by ‘progenitor’ cells – the progeny of stem cells – that divide and ‘differentiate’ into fully-functional skin cells to replenish dying skin...

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