Fast new method for mapping blood vessels may aid cancer research. WASHINGTON, Oct. 31—Like normal tissue, tumors thrive on nutrients carried to them by the blood stream. The rapid growth of new blood vessels is a hallmark of cancer, and studies have shown that preventing blood vessel growth can keep tumors from growing, too. To better understand the relationship between cancer and the vascular system, researchers would like to make detailed maps of the complete network of blood vessels in organs. Unfortunately, the current mapping process is time-consuming: using conventional methods, mapping a one-centimeter block of tissue can take months. In a paper published in the October issue of the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express, computational neuroscientists at Texas A&M University, along with collaborators at the University of Illinois and Kettering University, describe a new system, tested in mouse brain samples, that substantially reduces that time.
(Photo Credit: Biomedical Optics Express) Mine-hunting software helping doctors to identify rare cells in human cancer. Medical researchers are demonstrating that Office of Naval Research (ONR)-funded software developed for finding and recognizing undersea mines can help doctors identify and classify cancer-related cells. "The results are spectacular," said Dr. Larry Carin, professor at Duke University and developer of the technology. "This could be a game-changer for medical research. " The problem that physicians encounter in analyzing images of human cells is surprisingly similar to the Navy's challenge of finding undersea mines. When examining tissue samples, doctors must sift through hundreds of microscopic images containing millions of cells. By adding ONR's active learning software algorithms, the identification of cells is more accurate and FARSIGHT's performance more consistent, researchers said.
"This is not a typical Navy transition," said Carin. A medical team at the University of Pennsylvania is applying the ONR algorithms, embedded into FARSIGHT, to examine tumors from kidney cancer patients. Bacteria shed light on new drug targets for inherited cancers - myScience / news from the lab/ news 2011. Biological computer destroys cancer cells. Researchers led by ETH professor Yaakov Benenson and MIT professor Ron Weiss have successfully incorporated a diagnostic biological "computer" network in human cells. This network recognizes certain cancer cells using logic combinations of five cancer-specific molecular factors, triggering cancer cells destruction.
Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson, Professor of Synthetic Biology at ETH Zurich, has spent a large part of his career developing biological computers that operate in living cells. His goal is to construct biocomputers that detect molecules carrying important information about cell wellbeing and process this information to direct appropriate therapeutic response if the cell is found to be abnormal. Now, together with MIT professor Ron Weiss and a team of scientists including post-doctoral scholars Zhen Xie and Liliana Wroblewska, and a doctoral student Laura Prochazka, they made a major step towards reaching this goal.
Extensive groundwork was required to achieve this result. Harmless soil-dwelling bacteria successfully kill cancer. A bacterial strain that specifically targets tumours could soon be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs in frontline cancer therapy. The strain is expected to be tested in cancer patients in 2013, says a scientist at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference at the University of York. The therapy uses Clostridium sporogenes -- a bacterium that is widespread in the soil. Spores of the bacterium are injected into patients and only grow in solid tumours, where a specific bacterial enzyme is produced. An anti-cancer drug is injected separately into the patient in an inactive 'pro-drug' form.
When the pro-drug reaches the site of the tumour, the bacterial enzyme activates the drug, allowing it to destroy only the cells in its vicinity -- the tumour cells. Researchers at the University of Nottingham and the University of Maastricht have now overcome the hurdles that have so far prevented this therapy from entering clinical trials.
Nanosensors made from DNA may light path to new cancer tests and drugs.