As promising as some treatments are in lab tests, unfortunately they don’t always meet hopes when translated to the real world. Now scientists have found out why a class of cancer drugs failed in human trials, and gone on to identify another drug that could finally make the treatment work.
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The lamprey is not something you’d normally want anywhere near your brain. But now, researchers have used molecules taken from the freaky fish’s immune system to deliver drugs inside the body – and even managed to sneak them into the brain.
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A new imaging technique designed to help surgeons identify the location of malignant brain tumors during surgery is showing promising early clinical trial results. The technique combines a near-infrared camera with a special imaging agent synthesized from an amino acid found in scorpion venom.
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Cancer might not be so difficult to kill if it didn’t have the terrifying ability to spread throughout the body. Now, researchers have discovered a particular protein signalling pathway that controls whether a tumor can spread or not, making it a good target for future drugs.
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A detailed study has offered new insight into how disrupting circadian rhythms can promote tumor growth. The research also suggests that the efficacy of cancer therapies can be improved by more specifically timing the administration of certain drugs to a patient’s particular circadian rhythm.
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We have known for well over a century that exposure to certain environmental agents can result in DNA mutations that ultimately cause cancer. Now a team of UK scientists has developed a way to identify specific mutational signatures in tumors that can be linked to certain carcinogens.
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The pigment melanin is a natural defense against skin cancer – and now it could help fight other cancers too. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Zentrum München have found that melanin-loaded nanoparticles can help diagnose tumors and slow their growth.
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The earlier cancer is detected, the better the odds of treating it, but tumors can be hard to spot until they get to a certain size, at which point it might be too late. Now MIT researchers have developed a new optical imaging system that could be used to spot tiny tumors deep inside the body.
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Chemotherapy drugs are effective at killing cancer cells – but they’re also pretty good at killing healthy cells. Making these drugs more selective for tumors is a key area of research, and now a team at ETH Zurich has found a way to keep a common treatment – platinum nanoparticles – on target.
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Tumors are made up of many different types of cancer cells, and we can’t always clear them all out. Now Oxford researchers have developed a way to track the genetic “life histories” of thousands of individual cancer cells at once, which may lead to more effective and personalized cancer treatments.
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