Nanoparticles for optimized cancer therapy

Researchers from Göttingen and Karlsruhe have developed a new treatment approach for pancreatic cancer. The innovative method promises to be able to treat the disease in a more targeted way and with fewer side effects in the future. The therapy is now to be optimized for clinical application as quickly as possible.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New Approach in Cancer Therapy With Innovative Mechanism-of-Action for Ferroptosis Induction

A team of researchers led by Dr. Marcus Conrad from Helmholtz Munich discovered a novel anti-cancer drug, called icFSP1, which sensitizes cancer cells to ferroptosis.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Magnetic seeds used to heat and kill cancer

Scientists have developed a novel cancer therapy that uses an MRI scanner to guide a magnetic seed through the brain to heat and destroy tumors.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Special GSI expertise: Review text discusses current status and challenges of heavy ion therapy

Which are the best applications for tumor therapy with charged particles to realize its great potential for the future? In which cases can it be used most effectively? These aspects belong to the most exciting questions in radiation biology and medical physics. A group of top-class experts now evaluated and summarized the state-of-the-art of heavy ion radiotherapy and presented a review article in the world-renowned online journal „Nature Reviews“. Main author of the text with the title „Physics and biomedical challenges of cancer therapy with accelerated heavy ions“ is Professor Marco Durante, Head of the GSI Biophysics Research Department.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Researchers develop a new class of CAR-T cells that target previously untargetable cancer drivers

In a breakthrough for the treatment of aggressive solid cancers, researchers have developed a novel cancer therapy that targets proteins inside cancer cells that are essential for tumor growth and survival but have been historically impossible to reach. Using the power of large data sets and advanced computational approaches, the researchers were able to identify peptides that are presented on the surface of tumor cells and can be targeted with ‚peptide-centric‘ chimeric antigen receptors (PC-CARs), a new class of engineered T cells, stimulating an immune response that eradicates tumors.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Cancer: Information theory to fight resistance to treatments

A major challenge in cancer therapy is the adaptive response of cancer cells to targeted therapies. Although this adaptive response is theoretically reversible, such a reversal is hampered by numerous molecular mechanisms that allow the cancer cells to adapt to the treatment. A team has used information theory, in order to objectify in vivo the molecular regulations at play in the mechanisms of the adaptive response and their modulation by a therapeutic combination.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Striking gold: Synthesizing green gold nanoparticles for cancer therapy with biomolecules

Scientists have designed an eco-friendly protocol for synthesizing gold nanoparticles with optimized morphology for near-infrared light absorption using a biomolecule called B3 peptide. They report the synthesis of triangular and circular gold nanoplates and their effectiveness in killing cancer cells by converting the absorbed light into heat, providing useful insights for the development of non-invasive cancer therapy.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

New Technology Makes Tumor Eliminate Itself

A new technology developed by UZH researchers enables the body to produce therapeutic agents on demand at the exact location where they are needed. The innovation could re-duce the side effects of cancer therapy and may hold the solution to better delivery of Covid-related therapies directly to the lungs.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

165 new cancer genes identified with the help of machine learning

A new algorithm can predict which genes cause cancer, even if their DNA sequence is not changed. A team of researchers combined a wide variety of data, analyzed it with ‚Artificial Intelligence‘ and identified numerous cancer genes. This opens up new perspectives for targeted cancer therapy in personalized medicine and for the development of biomarkers.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

More than the sum of mutations – 165 new cancer genes identified with the help of machine learning

A new algorithm can predict which genes cause cancer, even if their DNA sequence is not changed. A team of researchers in Berlin combined a wide variety of data, analyzed it with “Artificial Intelligence” and identified numerous cancer genes. This opens up new perspectives for targeted cancer therapy in personalized medicine and for the development of biomarkers.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Artificial microswimmers slow down and accumulate in low-fuel regions

A researcher has discovered that artificial microswimmers accumulate where their speed is minimized, an idea that could have implications for improving the efficacy of targeted cancer therapy.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Intensity not paramount for physical training during cancer therapy

People receiving treatment for cancer are known to feel better with physical training. But does it make any difference how vigorously they exercise? A new study shows that whether the training is intensive or rather less strenuous, its effect is roughly the same.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Pharmaceutical research: when active substance and target protein “embrace” each other

Scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt, together with colleagues from Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Oxford and Dundee (UK), have investigated how the fit of potent inhibitors to their binding sites can be optimised so that they engage longer with their target proteins. Long target residency has been associated with more efficient pharmacological responses e.g. in cancer therapy. The result: High resolution structures revealed that when the interaction between the inhibitors and the target proteins lasts long, the target proteins „nestle“ against the inhibitors. In future, the researchers want to use computer simulations to predict the residence time of inhibitors during drug development.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Gold nanoparticles more stable by putting rings on them

Scientists have found a way to prevent gold nanoparticles from clumping, which could help towards their use as an anti-cancer therapy.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Potential cancer therapy may boost immune response

A new approach to cancer therapy shows potential to transform the commonly used chemotherapy drug gemcitabine into a drug that kills cancer cells in a specialized way, activating immune cells to fight the cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

A global assessment of cancer genomic alterations in epigenetic mechanisms

Muhammad A Shah, Emily L Denton, Cheryl H Arrowsmith, Mathieu Lupien and Matthieu Schapira

Abstract

Background

The notion that epigenetic mechanisms may be central to cancer initiation and progression is supported by recent next-generation sequencing efforts revealing that genes involved in chromatin-mediated signaling are recurrently mutated in cancer patients.

Results

Here, we analyze mutational and transcriptional profiles from TCGA and the ICGC across a collection 441 chromatin factors and histones. Chromatin factors essential for rapid replication are frequently overexpressed, and those that maintain genome stability frequently mutated. We identify novel mutation hotspots such as K36M in histone H3.1, and uncover a general trend in which transcriptional profiles and somatic mutations in tumor samples favor increased transcriptionally repressive histone methylation, and defective chromatin remodeling.

Conclusions

This unbiased approach confirms previously published data, uncovers novel cancer-associated aberrations targeting epigenetic mechanisms, and justifies continued monitoring of chromatin-related alterations as a class, as more cancer types and distinct cancer stages are represented in cancer genomics data repositories.

Continue reading „A global assessment of cancer genomic alterations in epigenetic mechanisms“

A new theory of the origin of cancer: quantum coherent entanglement, centrioles, mitosis, and differentiation

Low non-specific, low intensity laser illumination (635, 670 or 830 nm) apparently enhances centriole replication and promotes cell division, what is the opposite of a desired cancer therapy. In the contrary, centrioles are sensitive to coherent light. Then higher intensity laser illumination – still below heating threshold – may selectively target centrioles, impair mitosis and be a beneficial therapy against malignancy. If centrioles utilize quantum photons for entanglement, properties of centrosomes/centrioles approached more specifically could be useful for therapy. Healthy centrioles for a given organism or tissue differentiation should then have specific quantum optical properties detectable through some type of readout technology. An afflicted patient’s normal cells could be examined to determine the required centriole properties which may then be used to generate identical quantum coherent photons administered to the malignancy. In this mode the idea would not be to destroy the tumor – relatively low energy lasers would be used – but to “reprogram” or redifferentiate the centrioles and transform the tumor back to healthy well differentiated tissue.

Hameroff, SR (2004) A new theory of the origin of cancer: quantum coherent entanglement, centrioles, mitosis, and differentiation. BioSystems 77, 119–136