Pancreatic cancer 's high death rate is partly blamed on the difficulty of early detection. Teenage scientist Jack Andraka has come up with a cheap and simple way to test for it.
Pancreatic cancer is a killer – and one that is very hard to detect. One of the reasons its survival rate is so poor that it has few symptoms in the early stages.
Partly spurred by the death of his uncle, 16-year-old scientist and researcher Jack Andraka vowed to find a quick and cheap way to test for signs of the disease.
Andraka's research – incuding writing to 200 science professors – led to him developing a dipstick diagnostic test which searches for a biomarker for pancreatic cancer. It can also be used to test for lung and ovarian cancer.
He tells BBC Future about his quest.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130701-perfecting-early-cancer-detection
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Better diagnosis and treatment of cancer
Novel quantum dot-based technique sees 100 different molecules in a single cell.
Better diagnosis and treatment of cancer could hinge on the ability to rapidly map out networks of dozens of molecules in individual tumor cells.
New research from the University of Washington offers a more comprehensive way of analyzing a single cell’s unique behavior and could reveal patterns that indicate why a cell will or will not become malignant.
Xiaohu Gua and graduate student Pavel Zrazhevskiy have used an array of distinctly colored quantum dots to illuminate 100 biomarkers, a ten-fold increase from the current research standard, to help analyze individual cells from cultures or tissue biopsies.
Other approaches have measured multiple biomarkers in a single cell, but what makes this technique promising is that it reuses the same precious tissue sample in a cyclical process to measure 100 biomolecules in groups of ten.
The investigators then inject a solution of ten of these antibody-quantum dot pairs onto a tissue sample and use a fluorescence microscope to quantify which of the constructs bind at the single cell level.
Once the measurement is complete, they then wash the tissue sample with a fluid of detergents at low pH to get rid of the antibodies and quantum dots without degrading the tissue sample, and repeat the staining step for different target molecules
The two investigators have shown that they can repeat this process at least ten times without producing any signs of tissue damage.
The researchers note that because this methodology uses commercially available enzymes and standard fluorescence microscopes, it is relatively low cost. They also plan to automate the procedure using microfluidics and automated image processing technologies.
This work, which was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute, is detailed in an open access paper in Nature Communications.
Pavel Zrazhevskiy, Xiaohu Gao, Quantum dot imaging platform for single-cell molecular profiling, Nature Communications, 2013, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2635 (open access)
Source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/novel-quantum-dot-based-technique-sees-100-different-molecules-in-a-single-cell
Better diagnosis and treatment of cancer could hinge on the ability to rapidly map out networks of dozens of molecules in individual tumor cells.
New research from the University of Washington offers a more comprehensive way of analyzing a single cell’s unique behavior and could reveal patterns that indicate why a cell will or will not become malignant.
Xiaohu Gua and graduate student Pavel Zrazhevskiy have used an array of distinctly colored quantum dots to illuminate 100 biomarkers, a ten-fold increase from the current research standard, to help analyze individual cells from cultures or tissue biopsies.
Other approaches have measured multiple biomarkers in a single cell, but what makes this technique promising is that it reuses the same precious tissue sample in a cyclical process to measure 100 biomolecules in groups of ten.
The investigators then inject a solution of ten of these antibody-quantum dot pairs onto a tissue sample and use a fluorescence microscope to quantify which of the constructs bind at the single cell level.
Once the measurement is complete, they then wash the tissue sample with a fluid of detergents at low pH to get rid of the antibodies and quantum dots without degrading the tissue sample, and repeat the staining step for different target molecules
The two investigators have shown that they can repeat this process at least ten times without producing any signs of tissue damage.
The researchers note that because this methodology uses commercially available enzymes and standard fluorescence microscopes, it is relatively low cost. They also plan to automate the procedure using microfluidics and automated image processing technologies.
This work, which was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute, is detailed in an open access paper in Nature Communications.
Pavel Zrazhevskiy, Xiaohu Gao, Quantum dot imaging platform for single-cell molecular profiling, Nature Communications, 2013, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2635 (open access)
Source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/novel-quantum-dot-based-technique-sees-100-different-molecules-in-a-single-cell
New theory uncovers cancer’s deep evolutionary roots
Authors predict that if cancer cells are saturated with oxygen but deprived of sugar, it will slow them down or even even kill them.
A new way to look at cancer — by tracing its deep evolutionary roots to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago — has been proposed by Paul Davies of Arizona State University’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science in collaboration with Charles Lineweaver of the Australian National University.
Their view of cancer is outlined in the article “Exposing cancer’s deep evolutionary roots,” written by Davies (available free with registration). It appears in a special July issue of Physics World devoted to the physics of cancer.
The new theory predicts that as cancer progresses through more and more malignant stages, it will express genes that are more deeply conserved among multicellular organisms, and so are in some sense more ancient. Davies and Lineweaver are currently testing this prediction by comparing gene expression data from cancer biopsies with phylogenetic trees going back 1.6 billion years, with the help of Luis Cisneros, a postdoctoral researcher with ASU’s Beyond Center.
“It is clear that some radically new thinking is needed,” Davies states. “Like aging, cancer seems to be a deeply embedded part of the life process. Also like aging, cancer generally cannot be cured but its effects can certainly be mitigated, for example, by delaying onset and extending periods of dormancy. But we will learn to do this effectively only when we better understand cancer, including its place in the great sweep of evolutionary history.”
Paul Davies, Exposing cancer's deep evolutionary roots, Physics World, 2013 (requires free registration)
Source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-theory-uncovers-cancers-deep-evolutionary-roots
A new way to look at cancer — by tracing its deep evolutionary roots to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago — has been proposed by Paul Davies of Arizona State University’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science in collaboration with Charles Lineweaver of the Australian National University.
Their view of cancer is outlined in the article “Exposing cancer’s deep evolutionary roots,” written by Davies (available free with registration). It appears in a special July issue of Physics World devoted to the physics of cancer.
The new theory predicts that as cancer progresses through more and more malignant stages, it will express genes that are more deeply conserved among multicellular organisms, and so are in some sense more ancient. Davies and Lineweaver are currently testing this prediction by comparing gene expression data from cancer biopsies with phylogenetic trees going back 1.6 billion years, with the help of Luis Cisneros, a postdoctoral researcher with ASU’s Beyond Center.
“It is clear that some radically new thinking is needed,” Davies states. “Like aging, cancer seems to be a deeply embedded part of the life process. Also like aging, cancer generally cannot be cured but its effects can certainly be mitigated, for example, by delaying onset and extending periods of dormancy. But we will learn to do this effectively only when we better understand cancer, including its place in the great sweep of evolutionary history.”
Paul Davies, Exposing cancer's deep evolutionary roots, Physics World, 2013 (requires free registration)
Source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-theory-uncovers-cancers-deep-evolutionary-roots
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Scientists Tailor Make Anti-Cancer Agent
Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia and their collaborators have tailor-made a new chemical compound that blocks a key cancer protein. The development of the compound, called WEHI-539, is an important step towards the design of a potential new anti-cancer agent.
The researchers designed the compound WEHI-539 to bind and block the function of a protein called BCL-XL that normally prevents cells from dying. BCL-XL has been linked to poor responses to treatment in cancer patients.
The death and elimination of abnormal cells in the body is an important safeguard against cancer development. But cancer cells often acquire genetic changes that allow them to escape cell death, which also reduces the effectiveness of anti-cancer treatments such as chemotherapy.
Cancer cells can become long-lived by producing high levels of BCL-XL protein, and high levels of BCL-XL are also associated with poorer outcomes for patients with lung, stomach, colon and pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Guillaume Lessene, who led the research team in collaboration with Genentech, said the development of WEHI-539 was an important milestone on the way to creating potential anti-cancer agents that act to restore cell death by inhibiting BCL-XL.
Publishing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, Dr. Lessene said WEHI-539 was the product of a sustained research program. Article link: Lessene et al. (2013) Structure-guided design of a selective BCL-XL inhibitor
Source: http://www.asianscientist.com/health-medicine/scientists-tailor-anti-cancer-agent-2013/
The researchers designed the compound WEHI-539 to bind and block the function of a protein called BCL-XL that normally prevents cells from dying. BCL-XL has been linked to poor responses to treatment in cancer patients.
The death and elimination of abnormal cells in the body is an important safeguard against cancer development. But cancer cells often acquire genetic changes that allow them to escape cell death, which also reduces the effectiveness of anti-cancer treatments such as chemotherapy.
Cancer cells can become long-lived by producing high levels of BCL-XL protein, and high levels of BCL-XL are also associated with poorer outcomes for patients with lung, stomach, colon and pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Guillaume Lessene, who led the research team in collaboration with Genentech, said the development of WEHI-539 was an important milestone on the way to creating potential anti-cancer agents that act to restore cell death by inhibiting BCL-XL.
Publishing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, Dr. Lessene said WEHI-539 was the product of a sustained research program. Article link: Lessene et al. (2013) Structure-guided design of a selective BCL-XL inhibitor
Source: http://www.asianscientist.com/health-medicine/scientists-tailor-anti-cancer-agent-2013/
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