Removal Of Extra Chromosome 21 From Down Syndrome Cell Line Has Implications For Related Leukemias
11/12/2012
University of Washington scientists have succeeded in removing the extra copy of chromosome 21 in cell cultures derived from a person with Down's syndrome. In Down syndrome, the body's cells contain three copies of chromosome 21, rather than the usual pair. A triplicate of any chromosome is a serious genetic abnormality called a trisomy...
Female Lung Cancer Rates To Skyrocket
11/12/2012
Lung cancer in females will rise thirty-times faster than in males over the next thirty years in the United Kingdom, according to a new report by King's College London, and funded by Macmillan Cancer Support. The authors of the report say that the number of annual deaths among women in the UK will rise from approximately 26,000 in 2010 to about 95,000 in 2040 - an increase of over 350%...
Axillary lymph node dissection is done in conjunction with lumpectomy or mastectomy to determine if breast cancer has spread to the adjoining lymph nodes. The conventional surgical approach leaves a surgical scar that is unattractive and can restrict range of motion in the shoulder joint. Also, squeezing and pulling the tumor during the breast operation can stimulate tumor cell metastases...
Link Between Autoimmune Disease And Pregnancy Loss, Stroke
11/12/2012
For years, researchers have known that antiphospholipid antibodies (aPLs) can cause pregnancy loss and clotting, but they haven't known the true scope of the problem. Now a new study provides the first estimates of the prevalence of these antibodies in patients suffering from pregnancy loss, stroke, myocardial infarction, and deep vein thrombosis...
An Autoimmune Clotting Disorder Called Antiphospholipid Syndrome May Be Treatable With Statins
11/12/2012
New research suggests that statins, traditionally used for cholesterol lowering, could be used in the management of individuals who are at risk for developing clotting because they have autoimmune antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL)...
Animal Testing May Be Overtaken By "Organ-on-a-Chip"
11/12/2012
A US study that successfully used a "lung-on-a-chip" to mimic a chemotherapy drug side effect brings closer the day when drug developers use "organ-on-a-chip" methods to replace more traditional approaches like animal testing and cell cultures, which are costly and time consuming...
A Completely New Way Of Delivering Anti-Cancer Drugs
11/12/2012
A completely new way of delivering anti-cancer drugs to tumours, using 'minicells' derived from bacteria, has been tested for the first time in humans and found to be safe, well-tolerated and even induced stable disease in patients with advanced, incurable cancers with no treatment options remaining...
Potential Way To Expand Cells For Use With Patients
11/12/2012
Canadian and Italian stem cell researchers have discovered a new "master control gene" for human blood stem cells and found that manipulating its levels could potentially create a way to expand these cells for clinical use. The findings, published online ahead of print in Cell Stem Cell, usher in a new paradigm for the regulation of human blood stem cells, says co-principal investigator Dr...
In Everyday Clinical Practice, Molecular 'Portraits' Of Tumours Match Patients With Trials
11/11/2012
Researchers in France are taking advantage of the progress in genetic and molecular profiling to analyse the make-up of individual cancer patients' tumours and, using this information, assign them to particular treatments and phase I clinical trials - an approach that could become part of everyday clinical practice...
In Xenograft Model, Spread Of Human Melanoma Cells Correlates With Clinical Outcomes In Patients
11/09/2012
UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists led by Dr. Sean Morrison, director of the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern, have developed an innovative model for predicting the progression of skin cancer in patients...