Technique used to shrink tumors, delay their growth

A team of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center scientists shrunk tumors or delayed their growth in animal studies by using radiation to enable a drug to “zero in” and block the tumor blood vessels.

The work, reported in the January issue of the journal Cancer Cell, is a model for what might be achieved in patients by using radiation to activate drug targets in tumors. “We can now use combinations of chemotherapy and radiation to

New pathway presents target for medication development

Brain molecules similar to the active compound in marijuana help to regulate alcohol consumption, according to new reports by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Bethesda, Maryland, and a separate NIAAA-supported group at several New York state research institutions.

In studies conducted with a strain of mice known to have a high preference for alcohol, the scientists found great

Treatment with two medications that suppress the immune system, rituximab and cyclophosphamide, appears to have cured one woman of an otherwise untreatable case of the blood disease known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). The findings support the theory that TTP is an autoimmune disease, and not only provide insight into diagnosis and treatment, but also reveal clues about blood clotting and autoimmune diseases in general.

“In this particular patient who did not respond to stand

An enzyme found only in the liver and intestines may play a crucial role in the development of hardening of the arteries — or atherosclerosis, a research team from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The narrowing of arteries through atherosclerosis is a major contributor to heart attacks and strokes.

The confirmation of the relationship between the enzyme, AC

Next-Generation IT Platform for Topological Proteomics to be Created

MelTec GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT today signed a collaboration agreement to develop an information technology platform for the management and interpretation of high-throughput experiments analysing protein networks of whole cells in situ, also known as topological proteomics or toponomics. MelTec continuously generates large data sets to decipher the toponome of cells an

atugen AG, a private company focused on the elucidation of disease pathways, today announced the identification of a novel cancer target that appears to play an important role in tumor growth and metastasis. atugen’s research group has demonstrated that inhibition of the novel target, Atu027, which has homology to protein kinases, results in blockage of tumor growth of human prostate carcinoma cells in orthotopic mouse models. atugen has demonstrated that human prostate tumor cells engineered to expr