http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The FDA has approved a thyroid cancer drug successfully tested at Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center Clinical Trials, a partnership of Scottsdale Healthcare and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cancer-drug-clinical-trial-fda.html Cancer Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:56:56 EST news283597005 Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have completed a phase II clinical trial to determine the safety and efficacy of dasatinib for patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, or acute myeloid leukemia resulting from MDS and have failed treatment with azanucleosides. The therapy may not be effective for all patients, but those with trisomy 8 chromosomal disorder have higher rates of stable disease and respond better to treatment with dasatinib, the study shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-dasatinib-patients-high-risk-mds.html Cancer Thu, 21 Mar 2013 05:19:37 EST news283061956 A seemingly obscure gene in the female fruit fly that is only active in cells that will become eggs has led researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research to the discovery of a atypical protein that lures, traps, and inactivates the powerful Polo kinase, widely considered the master regulator of cell division. Its human homolog, Polo-like kinase-1 (Plk1), is misregulated in many types of cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-mousetrap-fruit-flies-human-cancer-driving.html Cancer Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:42:58 EST news282400964 Together with colleagues from the international rheumatic diseases research community, scientists of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have presented a new therapy approach for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic form of joint inflammation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-scientists-arthritis-treatments-rheumatism-patients.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:40:05 EST news280074115 When it comes to gene sequencing and personalized medicine for cancer, spotting an aberrant kinase is a home run. The proteins are relatively easy to target with drugs and plenty of kinase inhibitors already exist. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-potential-tumors-cancer-drugs.html Cancer Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:51:03 EST news279298226 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this month expanded the options for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and one form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that carries the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph+ALL). It approved the drug ponatinib (Iclusig), which is effective in a significant number of patients with either disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-options-cml-patients-drugs.html Cancer Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:54:47 EST news275331280 Monozygotic twins have the same genome, that is, the same DNA molecule in both siblings. Despite being genetically identical, both twins may have different diseases at different times. This phenomenon is called "twin discordance". But how can people who have the same genetic sequence present different pathologies and at different ages? The explanation partly lies in the fact that the chemical signals added in the DNA to "switch off" or "switch on" genes can be different. These signals are known as epigenetic marks. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-epigenetic-difference-twins-breast-cancer.html Cancer Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:39:27 EST news269689161 New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Cell Communication and Signaling describes a large set of interactions (interactome) which maps the range of phosphotyrosine (pTyr)-dependent interactions with SH2 domains underlying insulin (Ins), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling pathways. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-sh2-pool.html Medical research Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:00:02 EST news266764863 Aberrant regulation of cell growth pathways is required for normal cells to become cancerous, and in many types of cancer, cell growth is driven by a group of enzymes known as receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). The RTK epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is overexpressed in over 30% of breast cancers; however, drugs that target RTKs, known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have not been effective in treating breast cancer. Researchers believe that the cancer cells escape TKIs by circumventing the RTKs and utilizing other enzymes that are not TKI-sensitive. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-class-proteins-breast-cancer-cells.html Cancer Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:00:01 EST news264064079 The human immune system has a natural ability to identify and attack tumor cells. Natural killer (NK) cells are innate immune cells that are particularly effective at killing tumor cells due to their ability to secrete cytotoxic enzymes. However, mutations have allowed many types of tumors to develop a resistance to NK-mediated killing through ill-defined mechanisms. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-cancer-immune.html Cancer Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:00:31 EST news258632667 (Medical Xpress) -- A University of Saskatchewan research team led by Tony Kusalik and Scott Napper have harnessed bioinformatics and molecular biology to create powerful software that promises to become a “must have” tool in drug development research labs the world over. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-powerful-tool-drug.html Medical research Mon, 04 Jun 2012 06:57:58 EST news258011703 (HealthDay) -- Regorafenib, an inhibitor of multiple cancer-associated kinases, is active in patients with metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) who have failed to respond to imatinib and sunitinib, according to a study published online May 21 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-regorafenib-metastatic-gi-stromal-tumors.html Cancer Wed, 23 May 2012 13:40:01 EST news256998413 A new analysis may help doctors identify breast cancer patients who will benefit from treatment with the immune suppressant drug everolimus, say French researchers at the 4th IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels, Belgium. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-patients-benefit-immune-suppressant.html Cancer Thu, 03 May 2012 11:50:02 EST news255260919 To better understand the signaling pathways active in sarcomas, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center used state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based proteomics to characterize a family of protein enzymes that act as "on" or "off" switches important in the biology of cancer. The tyrosine kinases they identified, the researchers said, could act as "drivers" for the growth and survival of sarcomas. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-drivers-sarcoma-growth-survival.html Cancer Wed, 02 May 2012 03:10:02 EST news255146304 A new class of agents known as c-Src inhibitors is being tested in a number of different ways to treat breast cancer, but researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center caution that they should not be used in combination with estrogen to treat endocrine resistant breast cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-specific-agents-worse-endocrine-resistant.html Cancer Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:50:01 EST news252586174 (Medical Xpress) -- Later-stage cancers thrive by finding detours around roadblocks that cancer drugs put in their path, but a Purdue University biochemist is creating maps that will help drugmakers close more routes and develop better drugs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-substrate-kinase-interactions-effective-cancer-drugs.html Cancer Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:28:21 EST news252087997 Cancer cells tend to take up more glucose than healthy cells, and researchers are increasingly interested in exploiting this tendency with drugs that target cancer cells' altered metabolism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-enzyme-flips-cells-sugar-cravings.html Cancer Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:30:55 EST news243786621 Drugs used to overcome cancer may also combat antibiotic resistance, finds a new study led by Gerry Wright, scientific director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-drugs-cancer-combat-antibiotic-resistance.html Medical research Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:15:10 EST news243785699 Some cancers can be effectively treated with drugs inhibiting proteins known as receptor tyrosine kinases, but not those cancers caused by mutations in the KRAS gene. A team of researchers led by Jeffrey Engelman, at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, has now identified a potential way to effectively use receptor tyrosine kinases inhibitors to treat individuals with KRAS mutant colorectal cancers — combine them with inhibitors of the MEK/ERK signaling pathway. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-combination-therapies-drug-resistant-cancers.html Cancer Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:00:03 EST news237465652 After decades of studying the pathological process that wipes out large volumes of memory, scientists at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research discovered a molecule called c-Abl that has a known role in leukemia also has a hand in Alzheimer's disease. The finding, reported in the June 14th issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, offers a new target for drug development that could stave off the pathological disease process. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-protein-linked-alzheimer-disease.html Medical research Tue, 24 May 2011 15:47:09 EST news225470789