Harnessing The ID In Glioma
12/23/2012
Gliomas are the most common form of brain tumor. They are highly aggressive and effective treatments are not currently available. The tumors contain glioma initiating cells (GICs), a population that is highly similar to neural stem cells. GICs drive tumor progression and must stay in a particular extracellular niche in order to maintain their cancer-promoting, stem cell-like characteristics...
Improving The Development Of New Cancer Models Using An Advanced Biomedical Imaging Method
12/23/2012
Scientists at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and the Moffitt Cancer Center, led by Dr. Robert Gillies, have demonstrated that an advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method can non-invasively evaluate the cellular proliferation of tumor models of breast cancer...
Mayo Clinic-Led Study Unravels Biological Pathway That Controls The Leakiness Of Blood Vessels
12/22/2012
A research team led by scientists at Mayo Clinic in Florida have decoded the entire pathway that regulates leakiness of blood vessels - a condition that promotes a wide number of disorders, such as heart disease, cancer growth and spread, inflammation and respiratory distress. They say their findings, published online Dec...
Cancer Diagnosis Later In Life Poses Significant Risk To Offspring
12/21/2012
But highest familial risk still in relatives whose parents diagnosed at earlier ages Relatives of family members diagnosed with cancer are still at risk of the disease even if the diagnosis came at an older age, suggests a paper published on bmj.com today...
A Trio Of MicroRNAs Contributes To Liver Cancer Progression
12/21/2012
MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules that regulate the expression of various genes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Shelly Lu at the University of Southern California identified a trio of microRNAs that reduce the expression of MAT1A. Reduced MAT1A expression is correlated with a worse prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC; liver cancer)...
Researchers Identify A New Player In Tumor Angiogenesis
12/21/2012
Angiogenesis, or the formation of new blood vessels, is important for tumor growth; however, while many regulatory growth factors have been identified, little is known about the genetic regulation that promotes tumor angiogenesis...
Breast Cancer Cells Growing In 3D-Matrix Revert To Normal
12/21/2012
Human breast cancer cells growing in the lab on a three-dimensional (3-D) extracellular matrix reverted to a normal phenotype when subjected to compression force applied by an elastic chamber, researchers reported on Dec. 17 at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in San Francisco...
MicroRNA Drives Breast Cancer Metastasis By Promoting Cancer Cell Survival
12/21/2012
Tumor metastasis, which accounts for the majority of deaths in breast cancer patients, is a process by which cancer cells acquire the ability to invade tissue and survive in other parts of the body. Dysregulation of the protein TGF-β is known to drive breast cancer metastasis, but the precise molecular mechanisms are unknown...
Breast Cancer Cells Interact With Non-Cancerous Tissue To Drive Metastasis
12/21/2012
In addition to mutations, environmental conditions created by the tissues surrounding tumors (stroma) play a major role in cancer progression. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Gregg Semenza at Johns Hopkins University examined the interactions between breast cancer cells and the stroma to identify underlying pro-metastatic molecular mechanisms...
Primary immune thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP) is a bleeding disorder in which the immune system generates antibodies that destroy platelets, the cells that cause blood to clot. B cells, immune cells that produce the antibodies that recognize the platelets, develop in the spleen...