cancer

There are many treatment options for cancer today, yet it continues to be a major health problem, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the US each year. While conventional therapies like chemo and radiation have successfully extended survival rates, they don’t necessarily work for all patients, especially those with late-stage or rare cancers. As a result, more advanced treatments and diagnostic methods are being sought after to stem the cancer death toll. One research area that shows great promise [more…]

Pancreatic cancer may not be as common as some cancers, but it has a bad reputation for being highly fatal, especially since it’s difficult to detect early. Smoking, diabetes, family history, and alcohol abuse are among the top risk factors associated with this disease. While it’s difficult to determine the exact causes of pancreatic cancer, a key mediator in its development is inflammation. Understanding why inflammation might lead to tumor growth in the pancreas has scientists examining the underlying mechanisms [more…]

What if instead of invasive cancer tests, scientists could run a blood sample through a computer program and not only detect whether cancer is present or not, but pinpoint where in the body it’s located? This technology, harnessed by a program called CancerLocator, could potentially be ready in a year. In a recent study published in Genome Biology, researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a computer program that identifies specific epigenetic patterns, or a combination [more…]

A new study from the scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) describes for the first time how natural killer (NK) cells, which are able to kill and contain viruses and cancerous tumors in the human body, can be manipulated by epigenetics. Through a series of experiments in mice, these scientists found that MYSM1, an enzyme in the body’s immune system that turns genes on and off by modifying proteins called histones embedded in DNA, is required for natural [more…]