Posts tagged ‘cancer research’
Canadians Identify Biomarker for 80% of Breast Cancer Cases
Researchers have identified many genetic markers for familial breast cancers, but not for sporadic breast cancer, which accounts for 80 per cent of all cases. Sambasivarao Damaraju, a professor with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and a researcher at the Cross Cancer Institute, worked with his team to scan the DNA of about 7,200 Alberta women, including those who have had sporadic breast cancer and those who have not had cancer. Their genomes were scanned from DNA isolated from blood.
The results? Women who had sporadic breast cancer frequently had a genetic marker on chromosome 4, a marker that has never been associated with familial breast cancer cases.
May 29, 2013 at 2:34 pm Canadian Biotechnologist Leave a comment
Slowing Cancer Progression
University of Montreal researchers have discovered a novel molecular mechanism that can potentially slow the progression of some cancers and other diseases of abnormal growth. In the May 23 edition of the prestigious journal Cell, scientists from the University of Montreal explain how they found that the anti-cancer and anti-proliferative drug rapamycin slows down or prevents cells from dividing.
“Cells normally monitor the availability of nutrients and will slow down or accelerate their growth and division accordingly. A key monitor of nutrients is a protein called the Target of Rapamycin (TOR), but we do not know the details of how this protein feeds signals downstream to control growth” says Dr. Stephen Michnick, senior author and a University of Montreal biochemistry professor. He adds that, “we were surprised to find that TOR hooks up to a circuit that controls the exit of cells from division which in turn modulates the RNA message that codes for a key cell cycle regulator called B-cyclin”.
May 23, 2013 at 3:12 pm Canadian Biotechnologist Leave a comment
McMaster Research Named on of Top 10 Cancer Breakthroughs of 2012
Work by McMaster’s Mick Bhatia has been selected by the Canadian Cancer Society as part of the organization’s top 10 cancer research breakthroughs of 2012.
January 10, 2013 at 9:29 am Canadian Biotechnologist Leave a comment
Canadian Research Article Published
The heat shock protein-90 co-chaperone, Cyclophilin 40, promotes ALK-positive, anaplastic large cell lymphoma viability and its expression is regulated by the NPM-ALK oncoprotein.
Click here for the complete article.
McMaster University researchers discover drug destroys human cancer stem cells but not healthy ones
A team of scientists at McMaster University has discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments.
“The unusual aspect of our finding is the way this human-ready drug actually kills cancer stem cells; by changing them into cells that are non-cancerous,” said Mick Bhatia, the principal investigator for the study and scientific director of McMaster’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, thioridazine appears to have no effect on normal stem cells.
The research, published today in the science journal CELL, holds the promise of a new strategy and discovery pipeline for the development of anticancer drugs in the treatment of various cancers. The research team has identified another dozen drugs that have good potential for the same response.
May 24, 2012 at 2:51 pm Canadian Biotechnologist Leave a comment
