http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Proteins that control cell growth are often mutated in cancer, and their aberrant signaling drives the wild proliferation of cells that gives rise to tumors. One such protein, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), fuels a wide variety of cancers—including a highly malignant brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Yet drugs devised to block its signaling tend to work only for a short while, until the cancer cells adapt to evade the therapy. So far, much of the research examining such drug resistance has focused on how mutations of other proteins in cancer cells allow them to resist drugs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-hijacking-healthy-cellular-circuits.html Cancer Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:26:19 EST news284657171 As public health authorities across the globe grapple with the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, Tufts University School of Medicine microbiologists and colleagues have identified the unique resistance mechanisms of a clinical isolate of E. coli resistant to carbapenems. Carbapenems are a class of antibiotics used as a last resort for the treatment of disease-causing bacteria, including E. coli and Klebsiella pneumonia, which can cause serious illness and even death. Infections involving resistant strains fail to respond to antibiotic treatments, which can lead to prolonged illness and greater risk of death, as well as significant public health challenges due to increased transmission of infection. The study, published in the April issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, demonstrates the lengths to which bacteria will go to become resistant to antibiotics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-unique-mechanisms-antibiotic-resistance.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:06:11 EST news283514765 EPFL researchers develop a tool for oncologists using the electrical signature of cancer cells to get just the right treatment dosage for each patient. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-dose-oncology.html Cancer Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:00:01 EST news281616375 One of the most frustrating truths about cancer is that even when a treatment works, it often doesn't work for long because cancer cells find ways to resist. However, researchers reporting studies done in mice in the December 11, 2012, issue of Cancer Cell, a Cell Press publication, may have a way to stay one step ahead in the case of aggressive metastatic breast cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-incurable-metastatic-breast-cancer-resistance.html Cancer Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:00:05 EST news274359966 (Medical Xpress)—An interdisciplinary team of researchers has dissected a case of synergy in drug-resistant chronic myeloid leukemia to understand the mechanism by which two drugs, danusertib and bosutinib, work together to overcome resistance in the BCR-ABL gatekeeper mutation-specific disease. The team includes a researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Austria and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The goal is to address an unmet medical need because this BCR-ABL mutation confers resistance to all currently approved kinase inhibitors for chronic myeloid leukemia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-moffitt-drug-synergy-drug-resistant-chronic.html Cancer Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:40:04 EST news270300608 A national research collaboration of senior researchers, including a researcher from Moffitt Cancer Center, has found that 20 to 25 percent of "heavily pre-treated" patients with a variety of cancers who enrolled in a clinical trial had "objective and durable" responses to a treatment with BMS-936558, an antibody that specifically blocks programmed cell death 1 (PD-1). PD-1 is a key immune "checkpoint" receptor expressed by activated immune cells (T-cells) and is involved in the suppression of immunity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-success-immune-approach-cancers.html Cancer Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:42:35 EST news258813748 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 In an international Phase III randomized study, everolimus, when combined with the hormonal therapy exemestane, has been shown to dramatically improve progression-free survival, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-combination-everolimus-exemestane-survival-women.html Cancer Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:50:02 EST news242539907 Scientists from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research have shown that a mutation in the lipid kinase PI3K, which occurs in about 30% of human breast cancers, itself evokes different forms of breast cancer. While this kinase has long been associated with cancer, and is a target for anti-tumor therapy, it is now shown to be causal for multiple types of breast cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-breast-cancer-mutant-pi3k-recapitulates.html Cancer Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:47:27 EST news229686432