For patients with rectal cancer, receiving radiation therapy and chemotherapy before surgery to shrink the tumor so it can be more easily removed helps keep the cancer from coming back, according to a study presented October 17, 2005, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology’s 47th Annual Meeting in Denver .

Beginning in 1992, doctors in France enrolled 733 patients suffering from rectal cancer into the study. The patients were split into two group

A new method of radiation — accelerated partial breast irradiation using balloon brachytherapy — makes it more convenient for breast cancer patients to receive radiation therapy after surgery and appears to be safe, offer good cosmetic results, and keep cancer from coming back, according to four-year results of an ongoing study presented October 17, 2005, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology’s 47th Annual Meeting in Denver.

“This radiation tech

If the cancer-inhibiting properties of red wine don’t tempt you, why not try a cosmopolitan, the cranberry-based cocktail made famous by the Sex and the City girls.

Scientists have discovered a new compound in cranberries that works in a completely new way to prevent metastasis, the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.

Catherine Neto from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth discovered the compound, which prevents cancer cells from breaking away fro

E-cadherin is a molecule involved in adhesion between epithelial cells that also seems to have a protective role in cancer, since its loss is associated with tumour progression and metastases formation in a series of different cancers. How this happens, however, is not clear but new research, about to be published on the “Journal of Experimental Cell Research”, shows that cells that lose E-cadherin are more resistant to programmed cell death. Programmed cell death, also called apoptosis, is the

A gel made from a patient’s own blood reduces pain and may improve wound healing following endoscopic sinus surgery according to researchers at Rush University Medical Center. The study, published in the September issue of the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, found that patients who received platelet gel reported an easier recovery than patients who received traditional packing to stop bleeding.

The platelet gel is derived from the patient’s own plasma and is m

Chemists at UC Davis have made the first stable compound with a five-fold bond between two metal atoms. The work with chromium could give researchers new insights into the nature of chemical bonding.

Much of chemistry is about understanding how bonds are made and broken. For most of the history of chemistry, only single, double or triple bonds were known. Multiple bonds are particularly important in carbon chemistry, but only certain metals are theoretically capable of more than t

University of Delaware researchers are opening a new front in the war on cancer, bringing to bear new nanotechnologies for cancer detection and treatment and introducing a unique nanobomb that can literally blow up breast cancer tumors.

Balaji Panchapakesan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UD, has recently reported on the discoveries in the journals NanoBiotechnology and Oncology Issues.

He is the lead investigator for a team that includes Eri

Study appears in Science

Just as hurricanes in the Gulf states and Guatemala have raised the risks of cholera outbreaks, researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a new type of antibiotic against the cholera bacteria. While traditional antibiotics kill bacteria outright by interfering with processes essential for their survival, the new agent blocks production of bacterial proteins that cause the severe diarrhea associated with Vibrio cholerae infection.

“Wh

An avian influenza virus isolated from an infected Vietnamese girl has been determined to be resistant to the drug oseltamivir, the compound better known by its trade name Tamiflu, and the drug officials hope will serve as the front line of defense for a feared influenza pandemic.

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working with colleagues in Vietnam and Japan, report in a brief communication in next week’s edition (Oct. 20, 2005) of the journal Nature that a young

Early study shows spice stunts deadly spread to lungs

Curcumin, the main ingredient of turmeric and the compound that gives curry its mustard-yellow color, inhibits metastasis to the lungs of mice with breast cancer, report researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The study, to be published in the Oct. 15 issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, reports that the spice appears to shut down a protein active in the spread of breast cancer

Study may also have implications for dieters

Mice with the mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease show improvements in their condition when treated with a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. A report published today in the peer-reviewed, open access journal Nutrition and Metabolism, showed that a brain protein, amyloid-beta, which is an indicator of Alzheimer’s disease, is reduced in mice on the so-called ketogenic diet.

The report, by Samuel Henderson, from Accera

U-M discovery could help make bone marrow transplants more effective and an option for more patients

Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered the secret weapon behind the most powerful form of cancer immunotherapy known to medicine.

Scientists call it the graft-versus-leukemia effect, and it occurs when new immune cells from donated bone marrow, called the graft, attack malignant cells in the patient and destroy them.

Scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have successfully demonstrated that a theoretical–and controversial–technique for generating embryonic stem cells is indeed possible, at least in mice.

The theory, called altered nuclear transfer (ANT), proposes that researchers first create genetically altered embryos that are unable to implant in a uterus, and then extract stem cells from these embryos. Because the embryos cannot implant, they are by definition not “

Gene therapy could be used as an agent to protect normal tissues, including the esophagus and lung, from damage during a second administration of radiation therapy for non-small cell lung cancer, according to an animal study presented today by University of Pittsburgh researchers at the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) in Denver.

“A major challenge in treating lung tumors with radiation is the toxicity of radiation to hea

With their long stalks and feathery arms, marine animals known as sea lilies look a lot like their garden-variety namesakes. Perhaps because of that resemblance, scientists had always assumed that sea lilies stayed rooted instead of moving around like their stalkless relatives, the feather stars.

But videos taken from a submersible research vessel at a depth of 430 meters (1410 feet) near Grand Bahama Island reveal that some sea lilies can creep along the ocean floor, apparently

Dr. Terry Orr-Weaver and colleagues (MIT & Nagasaki University School of Medicine) present the first genetic analysis of the recently identified nucleosomal histone kinase, NHK-1. The authors generated NHK-1-mutant Drosophila fruit flies, and through cytological analysis of the resulting sterile female oocytes, determined that this histone kinase is necessary for disassembly of the synaptonemal complex, condensin loading, and the further acetylation of histones H3 and H4.

This work prov