Special glasses help surgeons 'see' cancer -- ScienceDaily. High-tech glasses developed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may help surgeons visualize cancer cells, which glow blue when viewed through the eyewear. The wearable technology, so new it's yet unnamed, was used during surgery for the first time today at Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. Cancer cells are notoriously difficult to see, even under high-powered magnification. The glasses are designed to make it easier for surgeons to distinguish cancer cells from healthy cells, helping to ensure that no stray tumor cells are left behind during surgery. "We're in the early stages of this technology, and more development and testing will be done, but we're certainly encouraged by the potential benefits to patients," said breast surgeon Julie Margenthaler, MD, an associate professor of surgery at Washington University, who performed today's operation.
Dr. Ingredient in turmeric spice when combined with anti-nausea drug kills cancer cells. Public release date: 20-Aug-2013 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Alaina Farrishakfarrish@vcu.edu 804-628-4578Virginia Commonwealth University In a laboratory, preclinical study recently published by the journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers combined structural features from anti-nausea drug thalidomide with common kitchen spice turmeric to create hybrid molecules that effectively kill multiple myeloma cells.
Thalidomide was first introduced in the 1950s as an anti-nausea medication to help control morning sickness, but was later taken off the shelves in 1962 because it was found to cause birth defects. In the late 1990's the drug was re-introduced as a stand-alone or combination treatment for multiple myeloma. "Although thalidomide disturbs the microenvironment of tumor cells in bone marrow, it disintegrates in the body. About VCU Massey Cancer Center About VCU and the VCU Medical Center [ Print | E-mail.
Science Confirms Turmeric As Effective As 14 Drugs. Turmeric is one the most thoroughly researched plants in existence today. Its medicinal properties and components (primarily curcumin) have been the subject of over 5600 peer-reviewed and published biomedical studies. In fact, our five-year long research project on this sacred plant has revealed over 600 potential preventive and therapeutic applications, as well as 175 distinct beneficial physiological effects. This entire database of 1,585 ncbi-hyperlinked turmeric abstracts can be downloaded as a PDF at our Downloadable Turmeric Document page, and acquired either as a retail item or with 200 GMI-tokens, for those of you who are already are members and receive them automatically each month.
Given the sheer density of research performed on this remarkable spice, it is no wonder that a growing number of studies have concluded that it compares favorably to a variety of conventional medications, including: Resources www.greenmedinfo.com Eddie L. is the founder and owner of WorldTruth.TV. Alt. Health. 600 Reasons Turmeric May Be The World's Most Important Herb. Cancer Drug Tested in Pet Dogs Bound for Human Trials | ALN. Thanks to a new $2 million investment, a drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct while sparing healthy cells is on the road to human clinical trials. The compound, known as PAC-1, has so far proven safe and has promising anti-cancer effects in cell culture, in mouse models of cancer and in pet dogs with spontaneously occurring lymphomas and osteosarcomas.
If PAC-1 (pack one) makes it through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Investigational New Drug review, the first human (Phase I) clinical trial of the drug will begin in mid-2014. The investor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has an option to invest another $2 million to take the drug into human trials. “The trial is going to be geared toward brain cancer patients,” says U. of I. chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother, who discovered PAC-1’s anti-cancer capabilities in 2006 and has been refining and testing it ever since. “We know that mice will always be used as a traditional model for cancer research,” Fan says.
Malten, a new synthetic molecule showing in vitr... [Br J Cancer. 2010. An aspirin a day now combats cancer. Medical Discovery News By Norbert Herzog and David Niesel New research shows that aspirin truly deserves its nickname as the wonder drug, since it now has been shown to help fight cancer. It’s naturally found in willow bark, which has been used as herbal medicine for thousands of years. People have been taking aspirin in its current form for more than 100 years. Ancient Greeks used ground willow bark to treat fevers and control pain during childbirth. Then, in the early 1800s, English physicians and scientists wanting to discover the key to willow bark’s effect isolated its active component, salicin. Since then, researchers have found even more medical uses for aspirin. Recent studies may have uncovered another, quite wonderful, effect of aspirin — reducing the risk of some common cancers.
Several properties of aspirin might explain its cancer-fighting abilities. .Professors Norbert Herzog and David Niesel are biomedical scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Breakthrough cancer cell treatment from the University of NSW offers new hope. Little Zoe Emin, with her parents Erin and Alison, has just completed gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that have pushed her cancer into remission. Picture: Garry Osborn Photography Source: Supplied A BREAKTHROUGH treatment that prompts cancer cells to kill themselves is set to revolutionise treatment and could be available within five years. The medical breakthrough by scientists at the University of NSW came from research into the devastating and deadly childhood cancer neuroblastoma. However it has also been proven to destroy melanoma cancer cells and is expected to be effective in treating most cancers. The journal Cancer Research reports today that the compound TR100 targets the protein tropomyosin, which is one of the building blocks of cancer cells.
"It is much like what happens when you see a building collapse on the TV news," researcher Professor Peter Gunning, from UNSW Medicine said. It will be used in conjunction with other chemotherapies. Ruthenium complexes promising - News Center - UT Arlington. A team of UT Arlington researchers has identified two ruthenium-based complexes they believe could pave the way for treatments that control cancer cell growth more effectively and are less toxic for patients than current chemotherapies. Fred MacDonnell, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been researching a new generation of metal-based antitumor agents along with a team from the City of Hope Comprehensive Center Center in Duarte, Calif.
Their aim is to find new therapies to complement widely used platinum-based therapies, such as cisplatin. Cisplatin is one of the most widely used anti-cancer drugs and shows remarkable effectiveness against some cancers, however it does not work on all cancers and can have severe side effects. A graphic from MacDonnell's paper shows the growth of a control tumor compared to the growth of tumors treated with ruthenium-based complexes developed in the lab.
Indian plant could play key role in death of cancer cells. Public release date: 14-Feb-2013 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Danielle Mooresdwongmoores@yahoo.com 706-496-5956Georgia Health Sciences University AUGUSTA, Ga. – Scientists at the Georgia Regents University Cancer Center have identified an Indian plant, used for centuries to treat inflammation, fever and malaria, that could help kill cancer cells. Cancer cells typically avoid death by hijacking molecular chaperones that guide and protect the proteins that ensure normal cellular function and then tricking them into helping mutated versions of those proteins stay alive, says Dr. Drug development has focused on the chaperone Hsp90 (heat shock protein 90) because it plays a key role in assisting mutated proteins, making it an attractive cancer drug target. In this study, however, Chaitanya Patwardhan, a graduate student in Dr. Along with Patwardhan, the study was also authored by Dr.
Dr. . [ Print | E-mail AAAS and EurekAlert! One-two punch strategy against bacteria and cancer. Cancer researchers from Rice University suggest that a new man-made drug that’s already proven effective at killing cancer and drug-resistant bacteria could best deliver its knockout blow when used in combination with drugs made from naturally occurring toxins. “One of the oldest tricks in fighting is the one-two punch — you distract your opponent with one attack and deliver a knockout blow with another,” said José Onuchic of Rice’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP). “Combinatorial drug therapies employ that strategy at a cellular level. Rice University scientists have proposed using a combination of drugs to fight cancer and drug-resistant bacteria. The drug cocktails would contain a synthetic drug with a "counterclockwise" twist not found in nature as well as clockwise-shaped natural toxins.
Gram-negative bacteria are a class of pathogens that includes drug-resistant varieties of bacteria that cause pneumonia, sepsis and other deadly diseases. Researchers Develop New Drug To Prevent Chemotherapy Side Effects. By Sam Lehman | Jan 23, 2013 09:33 AM EST Ohio hospital fights to continue 10-year-old Amish girl's cancer treatment. (NOT PICTURED) (Photo : Reuters) Researchers at the Linköping University in Sweden have discovered a new drug that can prevent side effects from cancer treatment, reports Science Daily.
The well-known process for the treatment of cancer, chemotherapy, has its own side effects which decrease the count of white blood corpuscles making the body more prone to deadly diseases. "We found that the substance could affect the formation of oxygen radicals, which are a cause of side effects in chemotherapy," said Professor Rolf G. The study was initiated on cancer infected mice. "We remade the substance and replaced a lot of the manganese with calcium. The study will be concluded by the end of this year with the process to be experimented on a larger scale which is currently under the supervision of Jan Olof G. Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers.
New Scientist has received an unprecedented amount of interest in this story from readers. If you would like up-to-date information on any plans for clinical trials of DCA in patients with cancer, or would like to donate towards a fund for such trials, please visit the site set up by the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board. We will also follow events closely and will report any progress as it happens. Update, 16 May 2011: If you've just heard about this story, please read this recent update too. Article originally published online 17 January 2007: It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality".
The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs. More From New Scientist Push-button pleasure (New Scientist) Dichloroacetic acid. Although preliminary studies have shown DCA can slow the growth of certain tumors in animal studies and in vitro studies, there is currently insufficient evidence to support the use of DCA for cancer treatment.[3] Chemistry and occurrence[edit] The chemistry of dichloroacetic acid is typical for halogenated organic acids. It is a member of the chloroacetic acids family. The dichloroacetate ion is produced when the acid is mixed with water. DCA has been shown to occur in nature in at least one seaweed, Asparagopsis taxiformis.[5] It is a trace product of the chlorination of drinking water and is produced by the metabolism of various chlorine-containing drugs or chemicals.[6] DCA is typically prepared by the reduction of trichloroacetic acid (TCA).
Therapeutic uses[edit] Topical chemoablation[edit] Both DCA and TCA are used for cosmetic treatments (such as chemical peels and tattoo removal) and as topical medication for the chemoablation of warts, including genital warts. Cancer[edit] DCA - Dichloroacetic acid. Cannabis - THC. 3D printing cancer drugs molecule-by-molecule, using DNA scaffolds. Imagine designing parts that can self-assemble into a house. Now imagine that these same houses can self assemble into cities. On the nanoscale, as for biomolecules and tissues, this scenario is so commonplace that it hardly deserves mention: Your entire body, and every other living thing on Earth, self-assembled. If the designer is not the whole of nature itself, however, but a human with a fancy CAD program calling the shots, you might sit up and take notice.
A company called Parabon Nanolabs has recently developed a suite of CAD tools and technologies to do just that. A press release from the National Science Foundation describes a new project at Parabon, which it has chosen to fund. Cancer medicines are typically so expensive that a real price per molecule can be discussed using familiar numbers. Parabon’s InSequio design studio enables drug designers to build up molecules step-by-step from drag-and-drop menus, and quantify them in the process. The DNA itself is not the drug. Biologists Engineer Algae to Make Complex Anti-Cancer ‘Designer’ Drug. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a green alga used widely in biology laboratories, can produce many kinds of “designer proteins.” Biologists at UC San Diego have succeeded in genetically engineering algae to produce a complex and expensive human therapeutic drug used to treat cancer. Their achievement, detailed in a paper in this week’s early online issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens the door for making these and other “designer” proteins in larger quantities and much more cheaply than can now be made from mammalian cells.
“Because we can make the exact same drug in algae, we have the opportunity to drive down the price down dramatically,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at UC San Diego and director of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology or SD-CAB, a consortium of research institutions that is also working to develop new biofuels from algae. “We have a two-fold advantage over that process,” said Mayfield. Nanoparticles With a Heart of Gold Can Kill Cancer Cells | Surprising Science. Gold nanostars deliver drugs directly to cancer cell nucleus. While effective at killing cancer cells, chemotherapy is currently a shotgun approach that can also harm healthy cells and cause serious side effects in patients. The ability to deliver drugs directly into cancer cells would provide a more targeted approach to more effectively treat the disease with lower doses of drugs and less side effects.
Researchers at Northwestern University are claiming to be the first to develop gold nanostars that provide a much more precise approach by delivering a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus. The nanoparticles developed at Northewestern are spiky gold nanostars measuring approximately 25 nanometers wide with five to 10 points. This shape has dual advantages. Not only does it provide a large surface area on which a high concentration of drug molecules can be loaded so less drug would be required than current approaches, but it also changes the shape of the cancer cell nucleus, which improves the effectiveness of the drug release. John Kanzius.