-
Magazine
In the Feb. 16 SN: Robots roll into the classroom, brain zaps for severe depression, particle colliders of the future, how to walk like a tetrapod, sleepless nights boost Alzheimer's proteins and more.
Search Content
-
News
Poliovirus treatment helped patients with deadly brain tumors live longer
06/26/2018 - 17:50 Cancer, Clinical TrialsFew treatment options are available to people facing a second battle with a particularly fatal type of brain tumor called glioblastoma. But dosing the tumor with a genetically modified poliovirus — one that doesn’t cause the eponymous, devastating disease — may give these patients more time, a small clinical study suggests.
Of 61 people with recurring glioblastoma who were treated with...
-
News in Brief
Experts advise: Start colorectal screening at 45, not 50
05/31/2018 - 10:50 Health, CancerColorectal cancer screening should begin at age 45 rather than 50, according to new guidelines released May 30 by the American Cancer Society. The recommendation is a response to the steady rise over decades in the colorectal cancer rate in younger Americans (SN: 4/1/17, p. 5).
For people at average risk for colorectal cancer — those without a personal or family history of the disease...
-
50 years ago, starving tumors of oxygen proposed as weapon in cancer fight
05/04/2018 - 11:00 Cancer, Biomedicine, CellsStarve the tumor, not the cell
Animal experiments demonstrate for the first time that transplanted tumors release a chemical into the host’s bloodstream that causes the host to produce blood vessels to supply the tumor.… If such a factor can be identified in human cancers … it might be possible to prevent the vascularization of tumors. Since tumors above a certain small size require...
-
News
An enzyme involved in cancer and aging gets a close-up
05/04/2018 - 10:00 Health, Cells, CancerLike a genetic handyman, an elusive enzyme deep inside certain cells repairs the tips of chromosomes, which fray as cells divide. It’s prized by rapidly dividing cells – like stem cells and tumor cells – and by scientists on the hunt for cancer and other disease therapies.
Now researchers have the best picture yet of this enzyme, called telomerase. Using cryo-electron microscopy,...
-
News
The science behind cancer warnings on coffee is murky at best
03/30/2018 - 17:23 CancerCalifornians will soon be taking their coffee with cream and a cancer warning, after a court ruled that the state’s retailers must label coffee as containing a carcinogen. The decision followed an eight-year legal battle, which boiled down to a question that has plagued coffee drinkers and scientists alike: Is drinking coffee healthy, or not?
The judge’s ruling, issued Wednesday, says...
-
News
Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers
02/28/2018 - 15:49 Health, Cancer, MicrobiologyCertain skin-dwelling microbes may be anticancer superheroes, reining in uncontrolled cell growth. This surprise discovery could one day lead to drugs that treat or maybe even prevent skin cancer.
The bacteria’s secret weapon is a chemical compound that stops DNA formation in its tracks. Mice slathered with one strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis that makes the compound developed fewer...
-
Year in Review
Approval of gene therapies for two blood cancers led to an ‘explosion of interest’ in 2017
12/13/2017 - 08:27 Cancer, Immune ScienceThis year, gene therapy finally became a clinical reality. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two personalized treatments that engineer a patient’s own immune system to hunt down and kill cancer cells. The treatments, the first gene therapies ever approved by the FDA, work in people with certain blood cancers, even patients whose cancers haven’t responded to other treatments...
-
News in Brief
When tumors fuse with blood vessels, clumps of breast cancer cells can spread
12/08/2017 - 11:42 Cancer, CellsPHILADELPHIA — If you want to beat them, join them. Some breast cancer tumors may follow that strategy to spread through the body.
Breast cancer tumors can fuse with blood vessel cells, allowing clumps of cancer cells to break away from the main tumor and ride the bloodstream to other locations in the body, suggests preliminary research. Cell biologist Vanesa Silvestri of Johns Hopkins...
-
News in Brief
Microbes hobble a widely used chemo drug
09/14/2017 - 14:00 Cancer, MicrobiologySome bacteria may shield tumor cells against a common chemotherapy drug.
Certain types of bacteria make an enzyme that inactivates the drug gemcitabine, researchers report in the Sept. 15 Science. Gemcitabine is used to treat patients with pancreatic, lung, breast and bladder cancers.
Bacteria that produce the enzyme cytidine deaminase converted the drug to an inactive form. That...
-
News
Zika could one day help combat deadly brain cancer
09/05/2017 - 16:54 Cancer, Biomedicine, Immune ScienceZika’s damaging neurological effects might someday be enlisted for good — to treat brain cancer.
In human cells and in mice, the virus infected and killed the stem cells that become a glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, but left healthy brain cells alone. Jeremy Rich, a regenerative medicine scientist at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues report the findings...