Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Pregnancies that end in miscarriage or abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer

A Study coordinated by Cancer Research UK scientists has shown that pregnancies that end in miscarriage or abortion do not increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer later in life.

26 Mar 2004

Bionomics files novel angiogenesis genes patent

Bionomics Limited has announced that it had filed a further international patent application that covers 496 proprietary angiogenesis drug targets. The international patent application applies to genes that Bionomics has identified using advanced technologies such as microarray and bioinformatics analyses. These technologies have enabled Bionomics to identify novel angiogenesis genes that have not been identified by other companies or research groups.

26 Mar 2004

Joint Research Collaboration to Predict 3-D Protein Structures and Support Drug Discovery

IBM today announced that the University at Buffalo (UB) Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, The State University of New York, will use IBM technologies and research expertise to study the structure and behavior of human proteins. The outcome of this research could lead to more targeted drugs to treat diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

25 Mar 2004

Researchers turn off individual human genes to study their function

Researchers have produced vast libraries of short segments of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that can be used to turn off individual human and mouse genes to study their function. The libraries will be made widely available to laboratories studying human biology and disease. The researchers are optimistic that the libraries will become a powerful research tool for gene analysis and discovery.

25 Mar 2004

New Research Information on Tumor Necrosis Therapy

Researchers for Peregrine Pharmaceuticals presented today at the Strategic Research Institute’s Clinical-Stage Product Partnering Summit in La Jolla, CA a summary of clinical experience with Tumor Necrosis Therapy (TNT). The TNT technology is being developed in the U.S. and Europe by Peregrine under the trade name Cotara™. Over 200 patients have been treated with TNT world-wide and a TNT product has been approved to treat grade III or IV advanced lung cancer in the People’s Republic of China. A Cotara registration study for brain cancer has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and a Phase I colorectal cancer study is on-going at Stanford University Medical Center.

25 Mar 2004

iCAD issued with Fulcrum mammography film digitizer patent

iCAD, Inc., which designs, develops and markets Computer Aided Detection (CAD) imaging technology and systems for the early detection of breast cancer and other medical applications, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued the Company two patents for its Fulcrum mammography film digitizer and technology.

24 Mar 2004

Oregon Stem Cell Center Hunt for Human Disease Therapies

Oregon Health & Science University's fast-growing stem cell research program, which already has made significant strides in the hunt for human disease therapies, now has a place to call home.

23 Mar 2004

Carbon Dioxide may be used in medical implants

Carbon dioxide, an environmentally friendly solvent for dyeing and dry cleaning, may become a valuable new tool for making medical implants, according to a study at Ohio State University.

23 Mar 2004

Alcohol Consumption Decreases Risk of Heart Disease in Men

Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, is the leading cause of death in the United States. To help combat this epidemic, studies throughout the United States pinpoint dietary guidelines to reduce risk including a recent release from the American Heart Association which stated that hypertensive patients should avoid alcoholic beverages.

23 Mar 2004

New computer program accurately estimates chance of developing breast cancer

CANCER Research UK scientists have devised a user-friendly computer program, called the IBIS risk evaluator, which can give the most accurate estimate yet of a woman's chance of developing breast cancer.

22 Mar 2004

Tiny Ribozyme package could be future treatment of Hepatitis B virus

Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a tiny package that searches for and destroys up to 80 percent of hepatitis B virus in the livers of mice.

22 Mar 2004

DNA repair enzymes to fight cancer

The body has a set of DNA repair enzymes that clean up damage to the genome, to reduce potential problems. Many commonly used cancer chemotherapies work by alkylating DNA. However, the DNA repair enzymes are just as capable of repairing this alkylation as if it were damage from any other source, and so they act to overcome the effects of the therapy, reducing its effectiveness.

22 Mar 2004

Clinical study - Diagnostic testing for epilepsy released

Bionomics Limited announced today the publication of its international clinical study involving patients with a form of epilepsy confined to early childhood in the scientific journal, Annals of Neurology. The publication details genes associated with a condition known as Benign Familial Neonatal Infantile Spasms (BFNIS), a condition in which infants experience seizures in the first few months of their life.

22 Mar 2004

Plasticiser Phthalates connected with rising infertility rates

Phthalates, largely used as plasticisers, have long been suspected in connection with rising infertility rates, particularly among men. These substances are quite common and are considered highly hazardous to human health because they disrupt the hormonal balance and impair reproduction and development. What has not been clear up to now is the amount of phthalates that enter the human body.

22 Mar 2004

Study suggests cigarette smoking increases likelihood of death by prostate cancer

Although cure rates for prostate cancer patients who smoke cigarettes are about the same as patients who do not smoke, researchers have found that smokers were more likely to die of other causes than non-smokers, according to a new study in the March 15, 2004, issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official journal of ASTRO, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

22 Mar 2004

Chemotherapy offers new hope for pancreatic cancer patients

Chemotherapy after surgery more than doubles survival rates for pancreatic cancer according to new research published today (18 March 2004) in the New England Journal of Medicine. Scientists from the University of Birmingham and the University of Liverpool have carried out a Europe wide study of more than 280 patients over 10 years.

22 Mar 2004

Breast feeding increases choline which means more brain cells

Five years ago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers first reported finding that the nutrient choline played a critical role in memory and brain function by positively affecting the brain’s physical development. Differences in development influenced action, the scientists and their colleagues found. In animal experiments conducted at Duke University, both young and old rats performed significantly better on memory tasks if they received enough choline before birth compared with same-age rats whose mothers were fed choline-deficient diets. The latter showed deficits in the hippocampus and septums of their brains.

22 Mar 2004

Pfizer breast cancer drug looks to be best in field

A breast cancer drug made by Pfizer Inc. increased survival rates by 63 percent compared with the standard therapy tamoxifen, researchers said on Wednesday. The clinical trial strengthens the case for administering the newer drug, exemestane, as a first option. A study published last week showed that women recovering from breast cancer lowered their chance of developing another tumor by 32 percent if they switched to exemestane after two or three years of tamoxifen treatment.

22 Mar 2004

New research may help prevent anthrax, bubonic plague and typhoid fever

The mechanism used by the bacteria that cause anthrax, bubonic plague and typhoid fever to avoid detection and destruction by the body’s normal immune response, leading to life-threatening bacterial infections, has been identified by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine.

22 Mar 2004

Asian poison ivy like plant may stop prostate cancer

The croton plant, long known to oriental herbalists and homeopaths as a purgative, has an oil in its seeds that shows promise for the treatment of prostate cancer – the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. The active ingredient in the oil is 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate, a compound generally known as TPA.

22 Mar 2004