Targeting Single-Cell Cancer With Nanobubbles Plus Chemotherapy
Using light-harvesting nanoparticles to convert laser energy into "plasmonic nanobubbles, " researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) are developing new methods to inject drugs and genetic payloads directly into cancer cells. In tests on drug-resistant cancer cells, the researchers found that delivering chemotherapy drugs with nanobubbles was up to 30 times more deadly to cancer cells than traditional drug treatment and required less than one-tenth the clinical dose. "We are delivering cancer drugs or other genetic cargo at the single-cell level, " said Rice's Dmitri Lapotko, a biologist and physicist whose plasmonic nanobubble technique is the subject of four new peer-reviewed studies, including one due later this month in the journal Biomaterials and another published April 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Gold Nanostars First To Deliver Drug Directly To Cancer Cell Nucleus
Nanotechnology offers powerful new possibilities for targeted cancer therapies, but the design challenges are many. Northwestern University scientists now are the first to develop a simple but specialized nanoparticle that can deliver a drug directly to a cancer cell's nucleus -- an important feature for effective treatment. They also are the first to directly image at nanoscale dimensions how nanoparticles interact with a cancer cell's nucleus. "Our drug-loaded gold nanostars are tiny hitchhikers, " said Teri W. Odom, who led the study of human cervical and ovarian cancer cells. "They are attracted to a protein on the cancer cell's surface that conveniently shuttles the nanostars to the cell's nucleus.
Stem Cell Arsenic Exposure Raises Cancer Risk
A study published online in Environmental Health Perspectives reports that researchers from the National Institutes of Health have discovered how normal stem cells can turn into cancer stem cells and spur tumor growth through exposure to arsenic. Evidence of earlier studies shows that the drinking water of millions of people worldwide is affected by inorganic arsenic, which is a human carcinogen. Progressively mounting evidence indicates that cancer is a stem-cell based disease; whilst normal stem cells are vital for normal tissue regeneration and to stabilize organisms and processes, cancer stem cells are considered to be the driving force in terms of formation, growth, and spread of tumors.
Mortality In Nearly Half Of Cancer Survivors Due To Conditions Other Than Cancer
Although cancer recurrence may be the overriding fear for many survivors, nearly half of survivors from a recently presented study died from other conditions. These results indicate survivors could potentially benefit from a more comprehensive, less cancer-focused approach to their health, according to lead researcher Yi Ning, M.D., Sc.D., assistant professor in the department of epidemiology and community health at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and associate research member at VCU Massey Cancer Center in Richmond, Va. Ning presented the results at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, March 31 - April 4. "We realized that the mortality rates for some types of cancer, such as breast cancer, had declined, " said Ning.
Halting The Spread Of A Deadly Childhood Bone Cancer
Many children with the bone cancer, osteosarcoma, die after the tumor spreads to their lungs. In a critical step toward finding a way to stop metastasis, researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center say they have discovered an agent that prevents this type of cancer from spreading to the lungs in mice with the disease. The new agent stops or inhibits "ezrin, " a protein vital to the spread of osteosarcoma, say the researchers who presented their findings today at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2012. If proven effective in human studies, their ezrin inhibitor might potentially treat adults whose cancers are fueled by over-expression of this protein, and could be a life-saver for children with bone tumors.
New Clues To The Development Of Blood And Other Cancers
Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center have uncovered more details about how defects in components of the machinery that makes new proteins can lead to blood and other cancers. The findings, which were presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, may one day lead to new targeted therapies that address those problems. "These findings help explain how mutations in one class of proteins can trigger the development of cancer, " says Shuyun Rao, Ph.D., a scientific associate in the lab of David L. Wiest, Ph.D., also a co-author on the study, at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "If we find a way to block the pathway activated by these mutations, this may cause tumors to regress.
Researchers Control Drug Side Effects For Treatment Gains In Phase I Trial Of 2 Targeted Therapies Against Ewing s Sarcoma Tumors
A pair of targeted therapies shrank tumors in some patients with treatment-resistant Ewing's sarcoma or desmoplastic small-round-cell tumors, according to research led by investigators from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012. Five of 17 Ewing's sarcoma patients responded to the combination, with two achieving complete responses, one for 27 weeks. The researchers noted that the ability to manage patients' treatment-related side effects is vital to maintaining the therapy and slowing disease progression. The study was published simultaneously in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Low Recurrence And Cancer Death Rates Associated With Kidney Cancer Subtype
Patients with papillary renal cell carcinoma, the second most common kidney cancer subtype, face a low risk of tumour recurrence and cancer-related death after surgery. Those are the key findings of a multi-centre study of nearly 600 patients published in the April issue of the urology journal BJUI. "Because papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) only affects ten to 15% of kidney cancer patients, the small number of patients enrolled in individual studies makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions about how the disease will progress" says lead author Dr Vincenzo Ficarra, associate professor of urology at the University of Padua, Italy. "Bringing together data on 577 patients from 16 academic centres across Italy has enabled us to study this subtype in more detail than a single-centre study would allow.
Antibody Shrinks Tumors Of Seven Cancers
A single antibody caused tumors from seven different human cancers transplanted into mice to shrink or disappear, according to a new study led by Stanford University School of Medicine in the US. The researchers hope to repeat this dramatic finding with tests in humans within the next two years. Senior author Dr Irving Weissman, professor of pathology at Stanford, and colleagues, write about their success in treating bladder, brain, breast, colon, liver, ovarian, and prostate cancer tumors in this week's online ahead of print issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They say the antibody blocks a protein known as CD47, that sends "don't eat me" signals that cancer cells use to stop macrophages and other cells of the immune system from gobbling them up.
Small Number Of Cancer Cells Detectable Using Photoacoustics Technique
Researchers have developed multiple techniques and procedures to detect cancer cells during the earliest stages of the disease or after treatment. But one of the major limitations of these technologies is their inability to detect the presence of only a few cancer cells. Now, a research collaboration between the University of Missouri-Columbia and Mexico's Universidad de Guanajuato shows that pulsed photoacoustic techniques, which combine the high optical contrast of optical tomography with the high resolution of ultrasound, can do just that, in vitro. Most cancer cells are naturally elusive, so they used a photoacoustic enhancer to detect them. New developments are necessary, the researchers say, to be able to properly use photoacoustic techniques to recognize different cancer cell types inside the human body or in blood or tissue samples.
