Posts

The Revolutionary Project to ‘Solve’ Cancer

/2 Comments/in , /by

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABillionaire Sean Parker, famous for his founding roles at Napster and Facebook, is backing an unconventional $250 million effort to attack cancer that involves persuading hundreds of the country’s top scientists — who often are in competition with each other — to join forces and unify their research targets.

The consortium, which will be formally announced Wednesday, focuses on immunotherapy, a relatively new area of research that seeks to mobilize the body’s own defense systems to fight mutant cancer cells. Many believe it represents the future of cancer therapy.

More than 300 scientists working at 40 labs in six institutions — Stanford, the University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — have already signed on . . .

He describes the effort as a way to remove obstacles related to bureaucracy and personality that will allow scientists to borrow from each other’s labs unencumbered. The researchers will continue to be based at their home institutions but will receive additional funding and access to other resources, including specialized data scientists and genetic engineering equipment set to become part of the nonprofit Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in San Francisco. (Read more from “The Revolutionary Project to ‘Solve’ Cancer” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Doctors Battling to Stop Cancer Hail Revolutionary Treatment

/2 Comments/in , /by

Doctors battling to combat cancer have hailed a revolutionary ­treatment that teaches the body how to kill the disease itself.

Trials of immunotherapy showed remarkable results with 94% of terminal leukaemia patients told they had just months to live going into remission.

And more than half of 40 suffering other blood cancers were left disease-free, according to US researchers.

The treatment could reduce the ­reliance on chemotherapy, which has debilitating toxic side-effects.

In a second major breakthrough, an Italian study found the therapy could be used to develop a vaccine-style drug that stops the disease coming back after it has been successfully treated. (Read more from “Doctors Battling to Stop Cancer Hail Revolutionary Treatment” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

This Fruit May Help Detect, Cure Skin Cancer

/0 Comments/in , /by

The black spots on old banana peels may unlock a faster, easier diagnosis of human skin cancer, boosting survival chances, scientists said Monday.

When bananas ripen, their skin is covered in small, round black spots caused by an enzyme known as tyrosinase.

The same enzyme is present in human skin, and in greater quantities in people suffering from melanoma — a potentially deadly form of skin cancer.

A team of scientists used this observed commonality to build a cancer scanner, which they then refined and tested at length on banana peels before moving on to human tissue.

First, researchers at the Laboratory of Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry in Switzerland concluded that the enzyme is a reliable marker of melanoma growth. (Read more from “This Fruit May Help Detect, Cure Skin Cancer” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Blood Test to Spot Five Deadly Cancers Could Prevent Thousands of Deaths

/0 Comments/in , /by

A simple blood test which detects five of the most deadly types of cancer is being developed by scientists.

Researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute in the US have discovered that when breast, bowel, lung, womb or stomach cancer is present in the body, one particular gene changes its chemical signature.

The scientists think that change occurs when the body starts to lose the fight against the disease.

British charities said it could work like a ‘warning klaxon,’ sounding the alarm that cancer is present, at a time when treatments are likely to be most effective.

The crucial signature was linked to a gene called ZNF154. Researchers found that when a tumour was present, the gene showed increased signs of ‘methylation’ – a biological process which tells genes to switch to the ‘off’ position. (Read more from “Blood Test to Spot Five Deadly Cancers Could Prevent Thousands of Deaths” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Seattle Woman Who Raised $400G as Cancer Survivor Reportedly Never Had the Disease

/0 Comments/in , /by

A prominent Seattle cancer advocate and fundraiser has been accused of lying about her breast cancer diagnoses while she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, KOMO News reported.

Tracy Dart, who has raised more than $400,000 over the past decade for the Komen Foundation, is under fire for reportedly lying about her three cancer spells.

A Washington state car dealer who helped Dart raise thousands to fight the disease said a member of Dart’s “Team Tracy” contacted him to reveal that Dart had never been ill.

“She doesn’t have cancer—she never had cancer,” the representative said, according to Auburn Volkswagen owner Matthew Welch. (Read more from “Seattle Woman Who Raised $400G as Cancer Survivor Reportedly Never Had the Disease” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Alabama Scientist Breaks Ground in Cancer Research

/0 Comments/in , /by

When Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green receives invitations to be a guest speaker for professional groups, schools and nonprofit organizations, she almost never turns them down.

“Usually if there is an invitation to speak at a forum like that, I accept it because I feel like it’s a responsibility,” she said. “There are so few of us (black women in STEM fields) I don’t feel like I have the luxury to say I’m too busy.”

By many measures, Green has been extremely busy. One of fewer than 100 black female physicists in the country, she recently won a $1.1 million grant to further develop her patent-pending technology for using laser-activated nanoparticles to treat cancer.

A tomboy as a child, Green was crowned Homecoming Queen at Alabama A&M University (by a landslide vote), earned her master’s and Ph.D degrees at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is now is an assistant professor in the physics department at Tuskegee University.

It’s tempting to see Green for all the ways that she is unusual – not the least for winning a large grant at a relatively young age, and for being black and female in a field dominated by white men – but it’s not something she said she thinks about in her day-to-day life. (Read more from “Alabama Scientist Breaks Ground in Cancer Research” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

New Kind of ‘Designer’ Immune Cells Clear Baby’s Leukemia

/0 Comments/in , /by

A baby whom doctors thought almost certain to die has been cleared of a previously incurable leukemia in the first human use of an “off-the-shelf” cell therapy from Cellectis that creates designer immune cells.

One-year-old Layla had run out of all other treatment options when doctors at Britain’s Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) gave her the highly experimental, genetically edited cells in a tiny 1-milliliter intravenous infusion.

Two months later, she was cancer-free and she is now home from hospital, the doctors said at a briefing about her case in London on Wednesday . . .

The gene-edited cell treatment was prepared by scientists at GOSH and University College London (UCL) together with the French biotech firm Cellectis, which is now funding full clinical trials of the therapy due to start next year . . .

Using a gene-editing technology called TALEN, which acts as “molecular scissors,” specific genes are then cut to make the T-cells behave in two specific ways: Firstly, they are rendered invisible to a powerful leukemia drug that would usually kill them and secondly they are reprogrammed to only target and fight against leukemia cells. (Read more from “New Kind of ‘Designer’ Immune Cells Clear Baby’s Leukemia” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Number of Moles on Your Right Arm Could Be Tied to Your Cancer Risk

/1 Comment/in , /by

Moles are usually harmless, but they can be used to assess a person’s risk for developing skin cancer. Someone with more than 100 moles across their body, for example, can be at a greater risk for melanoma, according to experts. Now a new study suggests that physicians may not have to look at a patient’s entire body—instead, doctors can focus on the patient’s right arm, where the presence of 11 or more moles could signal a greater risk of melanoma.

The study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology on Monday, looked at 3,594 twins, and then a larger group of men and women, who all had nurses count how many moles they had on 17 different parts of their body. The researchers found that the number of moles on a person’s right arm was most predictive of their total number of moles on their body. Women with over seven moles on their right arm were nine times more likely to have over 50 moles on their whole body. People with over 11 moles on their right arm were more likely to have over 100 moles on their whole body. (Read more from “The Number of Moles on Your Right Arm Could Be Tied to Your Cancer Risk” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Is the Malaria Parasite the Cancer Cure We’ve Been Looking For? Accidental Discovery Displays Remarkable Results

/1 Comment/in , /by

As far as accidents go, stumbling upon a potential cure for cancer is one we can all probably forgive. According to a recent study, a group of Danish scientists might have done just that by discovering that a potential malaria vaccine had the unexpected side effect of killing tumors.

Malaria is bloodborne disease caused by the Plasmodium parasite. It is spread through humans by mosquito bites and, according to UNICEF, kills up to a million people each year. Malaria is especially dangerous for pregnant women as the parasite may attack the placenta, which then puts the child’s life at risk. In their ongoing efforts to prevent these specific infections, scientists from the University of Denmark made a remarkable observation: Due to the similar characteristics between tumors and placentas, the same technique malaria uses to attack and destroy placentas could also be used to destroy cancer tumors.

“The placenta is an organ, which within a few months grows from only few cells into an organ weighing approximately 2 pounds, and it provides the embryo with oxygen and nourishment in a relatively foreign environment,” study author Ali Salanti said in a statement. “In a manner of speaking, tumors do much the same — they grow aggressively in a relatively foreign environment.” (Read more from “Is the Malaria Parasite the Cancer Cure We’ve Been Looking For? Accidental Discovery Displays Remarkable Results” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Frequent Tanner Shares Grisly Skin-Cancer Selfie

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Tawny Willoughby grew up in small-town Kentucky, where, she said, it was normal to use a tanning bed four or five times a week.

“I had my own personal tanning bed in my home, and so did a lot of my friends growing up. … Everyone tanned,” Willoughby said. “I didn’t really even think about the future or skin cancer at the time.”

After one of her classmates in nursing school was diagnosed with melanoma, Willoughby made her first dermatology appointment at age 21. Sure enough, she had skin cancer.

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Now 27, Willoughby says she has had basal cell carcinoma five times and squamous cell carcinoma once. She goes to the dermatologist every six to 12 months and usually has a cancerous piece of skin removed at each checkup.

She’s become a cautionary tale about the hazards of tanning beds, thanks to a selfie she posted last month on Facebook. The grisly image, taken after one of her cancer treatments, shows her face covered with bloody scabs and blisters. It’s since been shared almost 50,000 times. (Read more from “Frequent Tanner Shares Grisly Skin-Cancer Selfie” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.