Chemotherapy

Taking a pill is the easiest, least invasive way to take medicine, but sadly not all drugs work that way. Now, Stanford scientists have found “an embarrassingly simple solution” that could make almost any drug molecule effective in oral pill form.

If someone you know has gone through chemotherapy, you might be familiar with the side effect 'chemo brain.' Scientists have now demonstrated a simple way to protect brain cells from damage using flashing lights and sounds at a certain frequency.

In the hunt for cancer cures, researchers work with structures known as tumor spheroids. A new method of producing these structures has emerged using simple parts, which could lead to the cheap, reliable generation of these valuable research tools.

Researchers have discovered that cerebrospinal fluid, the brain's shock absorber, may cause treatment resistance in people with brain cancer. But they identified a sixty-year-old drug that can be repurposed to resensitize cancer cells to treatment.

Researchers have, for the first time, observed a mechanism used by cancer cells to resist the effects of chemotherapy. The findings could be used to develop targeted drugs to help override it and make chemotherapy more effective.

When fighting cancer, chemotherapy is still a bit of a blunt instrument. By combining it with soundwaves, however, researchers have found a way to turn it into more of a scalpel than a club, sparing damage to nearby tissue and the body as a whole.

For the first time, researchers have pinpointed two genes – NEK2 and INHBA – that are resistant to chemotherapy for head and neck cancers, and found that by silencing them with existing drugs, treatment could become far more effective.

A third of the US population lives with chronic pain. While the economic burden is well known, it also has a huge impact on mental health, opioid misuse and quality of life. Scientists now say they know the genetic hack to cut off the pain entirely.

A chemo and immunotherapy combo has proven promising in treating patients with advanced Hodgkin Lymphoma, and removes the need for radiation therapy in kids. In a clinical trial, 94% of patients receiving the combo treatment entered remission.

Modern cancer treatments have greatly improved survival rates, but one huge side effect of some drugs is serious heart damage. In a breakthrough discovery, scientists have found the link that could lead to treatments that don't also attack the heart.

In new hope for aggressive brain cancers, injecting a drug-laden hydrogel into the brain after tumors were surgically removed was found to launch a combined chemo- and immunotherapy attack, preventing cancer from returning in 100% of treated mice.

Some cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy. Belgian scientists have investigated the cause of chemotherapy resistance and switched off the gene contributing to it, making cancer cells more sensitive to treatment.