http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—A study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) has identified an abnormal metabolic pathway that drives cancer-cell growth in a particular glioblastoma subtype. The finding might lead to new therapies for a subset of patients with glioblastoma, the most common and lethal form of brain cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-metabolic-molecule-growth-aggressive-brain.html Cancer Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:40:42 EST news290360432 Highly expressed in various cancers and known for its cytoprotective properties, TRAP1 protein has been identified as a potential target for antitumor treatments. As a result of the research conducted by Len Neckers, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, and Didier Picard, from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, this outlook is now being called into question. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-metabolic-weathervane-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:00:10 EST news284032874 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists and colleagues have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells' growth and spread are fueled by an unusual metabolic pathway that someday might be blocked with targeted drugs to control the deadly cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-scientists-potential-loophole-pancreatic-cancer.html Cancer Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:07 EST news283606570 When it comes to the sort of beneficial mutations that drive natural selection, there's new evidence that, evolutionarily speaking, timing is everything. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-beneficial-mutations-specific-circumstances.html Genetics Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:40:02 EST news282983087 Cancer cells need food to survive and grow. They're very good at getting it, too, even when nutrients are scarce. Many scientists have tried killing cancer cells by taking away their favorite food, a sugar called glucose. Unfortunately, this treatment approach not only fails to work, it backfires—glucose-starved tumors actually get more aggressive. In a study published January 31 in the journal Cell, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute discovered that a protein called PKCζ is responsible for this paradox. The research suggests that glucose depletion therapies might work against tumors as long as the cancer cells are producing PKCζ. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-cancer-cells-rewire-metabolism-survive.html Cancer Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:00:04 EST news278853900 Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered that the lack of a critical enzyme in the folic acid metabolic pathway leads to neural tube birth defects in developing embryos. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-lack-key-enzyme-metabolism-folic.html Medical research Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:23:45 EST news277651417 An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego and Yale University schools of medicine, have identified a form of autism with epilepsy that may potentially be treatable with a common nutritional supplement. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-common-nutritional-supplement-treatment-unique.html Autism spectrum disorders Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:00:05 EST news266148936 Behaving something like ravenous monsters, tumors need plentiful supplies of cellular building blocks such as amino acids and nucleotides in order to keep growing at a rapid pace and survive under harsh conditions. How such tumors meet these burgeoning demands has not been fully understood. Now chemists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have shown for the first time that a specific sugar, known as GlcNAc ("glick-nack"), plays a key role in keeping the cancerous monsters "fed." The finding suggests new potential targets for therapeutic intervention. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-chemists-tumors.html Cancer Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:38:51 EST news264951500 Inhibiting telomerase, an enzyme that rescues malignant cells from destruction by extending the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, kills tumor cells but also triggers resistance pathways that allow cancer to survive and spread, scientists report in the Feb. 17 issue of Cell. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-blocking-telomerase-cancer-cells-provokes.html Cancer Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:34:14 EST news249042846 Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have obtained new evidence that at least some persistent stuttering is caused by mutations in a gene governing not speech, but a metabolic pathway involved in recycling old cell parts. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-pathway-implicated-stuttering.html Genetics Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:07:02 EST news241204006 Cancer cells usually live in an environment with limited supplies of the nutrients they need to proliferate — most notably, oxygen and glucose. However, they are still able to divide uncontrollably, producing new cancer cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-cancer-cells-starvation-diet.html Cancer Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:20:02 EST news241080369 A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has identified a new metabolic pathway for controlling brain inflammation, suggesting strategies for treating it. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-inflammation-differently-brain-tissues.html Medical research Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:00:12 EST news238330579 A research alliance of Heidelberg University Hospital and the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), jointly with colleagues of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig, have discovered a new metabolic pathway which makes malignant brain tumors (gliomas) more aggressive and weakens patients' immune systems. Using drugs to inhibit this metabolic pathway is a new approach in cancer treatment. The group's results have been published in the prestigious specialist journal Nature. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-dioxin-like-chemical-messenger-brain-tumors.html Cancer Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:04:32 EST news237114238 Cancer cells are well known for their altered metabolisms, which may help them generate the energy they need for rapid growth. Using an emerging imaging technology, researchers reporting in the July Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, have discovered that those metabolic shifts actually develop even before detectable tumors form. By the same token, the studies in mice with liver cancer show that the altered tumor metabolism shifts back before established tumors shrink. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-metabolic-shift-early-cancer-clue.html Cancer Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:31:25 EST news229087865 Researchers have linked a variant in the vitamin D receptor gene (VDR) with the onset of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Caucasian men. The study population consisted of participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study, a multidisciplinary study of aging that began in 1963. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-gene-variant-linked-copd-men.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 16 May 2011 03:32:39 EST news224735516