Medical Breakthroughs

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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby pcslim » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:19 am

Key to Aging? Key Molecular Switch for Telomere Extension by Telomerase Identified
Fascinating field of study worth watching! :sunshine:
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine describe for the first time a key target of DNA damage checkpoint enzymes that must be chemically modified to enable stable maintenance of chromosome ends by telomerase, an enzyme thought to play a key role in cancer and aging.

LINK: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111123133522.htm
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby cactuspete » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:43 am

How to Reverse Aging
Can enzymes like Telomerase and Resveratrol help people to live longer?
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby MojaveMike » Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:25 am

Stem Cells Are Doing Some Very Fountain of Youth-y Things At the University of Pittsburgh
Interesting stuff. The problem is that the shysters out there will create products that are supposed to use this technology and sell it to people eager for a little life-extension!
The basic symptoms of aging in mice are pretty sad, and not all that different from in people, just, you know, much more tiny. They lose muscle, hunch over, move slow, and tremble. With a shot given before these signs of aging began, the mice kept behaving more like young, healthy mice and even grew new blood cells in their mouse brains. The weird thing is that no stem cells were found in brain tissue. After injection, the stem cells actually didn’t go anywhere else in the mice’s bodies. They just hang out and work their magic in the mice’s guts. “This leads us to think that healthy cells secrete factors to create an environment that help correct the dysfunction present in the native stem cell population and aged tissue,” says Dr. Niedernhofer. “In a culture dish experiment, we put young stem cells close to, but not touching, progeria stem cells, and the unhealthy cells functionally improved.”

LINK: http://www.motherboard.tv/2012/1/3/stem-cells-are-doing-some-very-fountain-of-youth-y-things-at-the-university-of-pittsburgh
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby pcslim » Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:10 am

The 'changing picture' of cancer deaths in America: By the numbers
Progress may be slow, but at least it's steady! The 40% drop in lung cancer can most likely be attributed to a drop in the number of people who smoke. Improved screening methods and treatment may have helped, but mostly that improvement would be the result in a change of lifestyle-related habits!
Cancer-related deaths in the United States are dropping — and have been for the past two decades — according to this year's annual report by the American Cancer Society. And some of the largest reductions came in cases involving the biggest killers, including breast, colon, lung, and prostate cancers. The decline came thanks mostly to early detection by increasingly sophisticated screening methods, and advances in treatment.

LINK: http://theweek.com/article/index/223069/the-changing-picture-of-cancer-deaths-in-america-by-the-numbersnbsp
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby wildrose » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:58 am

Scientists Transform Deadly Plant Into Cancer Killing Smart Bomb
Interesting member of the carrot family that might potentially be used to fight cancer. Currently the drug is in the earliest phase of FDA clinical trials and so it has a long ways to go before it becomes available to cancer patients, if it even makes it that far at all.
Thapsigargin, the active ingredient in the thapsia plant, does a fantastic job of killing tumor cells by destroying their calcium balance. But it will do that to any cell that crosses its path. So Genspera, a biotech company in San Antonio, Texas, found a way to strictly guide and control the drug through the bloodstream until it finds its target. "That's why we came up with the concept of producing a molecular grenade, so it activates only in the tumor," said Craig Dionne, GenSpera's president, CEO and director. The key to the cancer grenade's precise explosive effect is its "pin," a 5-amino-acid-long peptide that can be pulled only by an enzyme, called PSMA, found on the surface of blood vessels that feed cancer cells. Only when the peptide comes into contact with PMSA will it release the thapsigargin.

LINK: http://gizmodo.com/5881640/scientists-transform-deadly-plant-into-cancer-killing-smart-bomb
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby cactuspete » Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:00 am

DNA robot could kill cancer cells
Probably not going to be used in actual patients anytime soon, but it's an interesting approach to killing cancer cells! Watch the video accompanying the article and find out about DNA origami! :prof:
The researchers tested six combinations of aptamer locks, each of which were designed to target different types of cancer cells in culture. Those designed to hit a leukaemia cell could pick that cell out of a mixture of cell types then release their payload — in this case, an antibody — to stop the cells from growing. They also tested payloads that could activate the immune system.

LINK: http://www.nature.com/news/dna-robot-could-kill-cancer-cells-1.10047
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby pcslim » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:14 am

Engineered Viruses Could Kill Cancer
This article provides a brief summary of the history of this approach to fighting cancer.
Cancer cells divide like mad, crowding out their neighbors and causing tumors, the complications from which eventually kill. But the vigor has a price: cancer cells aren't as good at fighting off viral infections, and theoretically a virus could kill cancer cells without harming the patient.

LINK: http://news.discovery.com/tech/engineered-viruses-kill-cancer-120320.html
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby surfsteve » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:21 am

Even if they don't work they should be quite lucrative for the cancer industry.
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby pcslim » Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:52 am

DNA sequencing lays foundation for personalized cancer treatment
They say that every case of cancer may have different underlying causes and that's one of the reasons that different people respond differently to the same treatment. Identifying the underlying cause for the development of the cancer (which gene mutation triggered the onset of the disease) may make it possible to treat each case more appropriately. The idea is to target the cancer based on the underlying cause. It's not a matter of where the cancer develops that matters, it's the gene mutation that caused the cells to proliferate out of control that matters.
When during the course of cancer mutations develop also is likely to be important in decisions about treatment. In a recent study, Mardis and her team mapped the genetic evolution of leukemia and found clues to suggest that targeted cancer drugs should be aimed at mutations that develop early in the course of the disease. Using "deep digital sequencing," a technique developed at The Genome Institute, they sequenced individual mutations in patients' tumor samples more than 1,000 times each. This provides a read-out of the frequency of each mutation in a patient's tumor genome and allowed the researchers to map the genetic evolution of cancer cells as the disease progressed. They found that as cancer evolves, tumors acquire new mutations but always retain the original cluster of mutations that made the cells cancerous in the first place. Their discovery suggests that drugs targeted to cancer may be more effective if they are directed toward genetic changes that occur early in the course of cancer. Drugs that target mutations found exclusively in later-evolving cancer cells likely may not have much effect on the disease because they would not kill all the tumor cells.

LINK: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-dna-sequencing-foundation-personalized-cancer.html
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby cactuspete » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:09 am

Programmable Nanomedicine Cancer Treatment Shrinks Human Tumors
Cancer is complicated and scientists have come up with some interesting ideas to deal with it. There is no easy treatment for cancer and there's no way to prevent cancer. You can reduce your risk of getting cancer, but there are no guarantees! But treatments have steadily become more effective and I expect that trend to continue in upcoming years!
:sunshine:
Scientists have spent the past few decades tinkering with nanopaticles, and recently they have been able to cover them with cancer-seeking proteins and load them with a tumor-busting drug. But these tiny particles, hundreds of which could fit across the width of a human hair, have so far failed to perform in humans.

LINK: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/04/programmable-nanomedicine-cancer-treatment-shrinks-human-tumors/
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby cactuspete » Mon May 21, 2012 8:06 am

Google algorithm proves extremely useful in cancer study
Interesting application of algorithm, but it makes sense since either way complex systems are involved.
Recently, researchers at Germany's Dresden University of Technology ranked about 20,000 proteins by genetic relevance to the progression of pancreatic cancer and found seven that can help them diagnose the aggressiveness of each individual case. This leads to more effective and personalized treatment. In that vein, researchers helped narrow their protein rankings by looking at the network of physical and regulatory interactions to find which ones played a large role in the progression of cancer itself. The exact same way Google figures out which cute kitten blog to show you when you search "cute kitten blog."

LINK: http://dvice.com/archives/2012/05/google-algorith.php
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Re: Medical Breakthroughs

Postby pcslim » Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:59 am

Gut Microbes in Early Life Have Effect on Adult Emotions
A little news about the effect of intestinal flora on moods.
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