Tools for Lung Cancer Research

Recent advances in lung cancer research suggest a personalized approach to diagnostics and therapeutics to reduce mortality

Due to its high rate of mortality, lung cancer is a prominent area of research for scientists. Lung cancer is a complex disease with many subtypes resulting from factors such as family history, lifestyle and occupation-with each subtype requiring different treatment regimens. Thus, developing therapeutics for this disease requires vast research efforts.

The specific subtypes of the cancer must be paired to successful treatments, which can then be matched to individual patients. The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) has responded to this initiative for personalized medicine by creating new drug screening and diagnostic test development tools, such as tumor cell panels based on genetic alteration, primary cells, gene-edited isogenic cell lines and cell line derivatives.

"Over the years, we have expanded our portfolio into the most diverse and unique collection of cancer cells to include thousands of human and animal cancer cell lines representing the diversity of the disease," said Fang Tian, PhD, lead scientist at ATCC. "Our growing collection of lung cancer cell lines is now just shy of 100 lines.

Read more: Tools for Lung Cancer Research

Source: laboratory-manager.advanceweb

Latest progress in diagnosis and treatment of Sarcomas

What are sarcomas?

Sarcomas are rare tumours of connective tissue, and as a result they can affect any part of the body. These are tumours of fat, nerves, bone, tendons, muscle and skin. They account for about 1% of all adult cancers and approximately 15% of pediatric tumours. In addition to the wide distribution of potential primary sites and the rarity, these are also very heterogeneous tumours with over 80 different histological subtypes.

These 3 factors make sarcomas extremely challenging to treat. Consequently, it is very important that sarcoma patients are managed by an experienced multi-disciplinary team, including surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, oncologists, specialist nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists.

Diagnosis

In order to make the diagnosis a biopsy is required to confirm the presence of a sarcoma and the specific subtype. Because these tumours are so rare and heterogeneous it is essential that an experienced pathologist reviews the biopsy sample. Initial diagnostic radiology tests can include a CT and MRI scan depending on the location and type of sarcoma.

Treatment

The mainstay of treatment of localized sarcomas includes complete surgical removal with or without radiation. It is important that an experienced surgeon performs surgery as improperly performed surgery can have an impact on outcome.

Read more: Latest progress in diagnosis and treatment of Sarcomas

A sarcoma is a cancer. Sarcoma - malignant tumors made of cancellous bone, cartilage,

fat, muscle, vascular, and tissues.

Source: Designua/Shutterstock

Boosting Immunity With Fresh Vegetables

Change your lifestyle by adding immune­boosting vegetables into your diet. You all know the benefits of vegetables to your health. What’s more, they reduce your risk of diseases, like cancer and heart diseases.

So load your plate up with the following vegetables to help boost your immune system:

1. Mushrooms

Mushrooms has the ability to enhance the activity of natural killer T cells (NKT). NKTs remove and attack cells that are infected by viruses. They slow cancer or tumor growth, prevent DNA damage and tumors from acquiring a blood supply.

2. Asparagus

Asparagus has a natural diuretic ability that helps your body to flush out toxins. It contains glutathione, an antioxidant that can help lower your risk factor for cancer and heart diseases.

Asparagus is both anti­-inflammatory and cleansing to the body. It’s useful for inflammatory conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and arthritis.

3. Carrots

Carrots are useful in preventing seasonal flu and colds. This is because they are rich in betacarotene that helps in boosting your immune system. It it best to eat raw carrots for the best immune­ system results. 4. Garlic Garlic has been used for years to fend off diseases. Studies have shown that people taking garlic supplements experienced few cold symptoms.

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Source: exportersindia

Lymphoma

Overview

Lymphoma is cancer that begins in cells of the lymph system. The lymph system is part of the immune system, which helps the body fight infection and disease. Because lymph tissue is found all through the body, lymphoma can begin almost anywhere.

The two main types of lymphoma are Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). These can occur in both children and adults.

Most people with Hodgkin lymphoma have the classic type. With this type, there are large, abnormal lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) in the lymph nodes called Reed-Sternberg cells. Hodgkin lymphoma can usually be cured.

There are many different types of NHL that form from different types of white blood cells (B-cells, T-cells, NK cells). Most types of NHL form from B-cells. NHL may be indolent (slow-growing) or aggressive (fast-growing). The most common types of NHL in adults are diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, which is usually aggressive, and follicular lymphoma, which is usually indolent.

Read more: Lymphoma

Source: cancer.gov

Microbes and Cancer.

Understanding cancer’s relationship with the human microbiome could transform immune-modulating therapies.

In 2013, two independent teams of scientists, one in Maryland and one in France, made a surprising observation: both germ-free mice and mice treated with a heavy dose of antibiotics responded poorly to a variety of cancer therapies typically effective in rodents. The Maryland team, led by Romina Goldszmid and Giorgio Trinchieri of the National Cancer Institute, showed that both an investigational immunotherapy and an approved platinum chemotherapy shrank a variety of implanted tumor types and improved survival to a far greater extent in mice with intact microbiomes. The French group, led by INSERM’s Laurence Zitvogel, got similar results when testing the long-standing chemotherapeutic agent cyclophosphamide in cancer-implanted mice, as well as in mice genetically engineered to develop tumors of the lung.

The findings incited a flurry of research and speculation about how gut microbes contribute to cancer cell death, even in tumors far from the gastrointestinal tract. The most logical link between the microbiome and cancer is the immune system. Resident microbes can either dial up inflammation or tamp it down, and can modulate immune cells’ vigilance for invaders. Not only does the immune system appear to be at the root of how the microbiome interacts with cancer therapies, it also appears to mediate how our bacteria, fungi, and viruses influence cancer development in the first place.

Read more: Microbes and Cancer.

Source: © Istock/Kateja_FN/Frank Ramspott

Scientists develop supersensitive biosensor for cancer

A team of physicists and engineers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, has created an optical biosensor for cancer detection using nanostructured metamaterials that are 1 million times more sensitive than previous versions, pointing the way toward an effective early detection system for cancer and other illnesses.

The device, which is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, has been developed to provide oncologists with a way to detect a single molecule of an enzyme produced by circulatingcancer cells.

Such detection could allow doctors to diagnose patients with certain cancers far earlier than possible today, monitor treatment and resistance, and more.

The research, published online in the journalNature Materials, describes how the nanosensor acts like a biological sieve, isolating a small protein molecule weighing less than 800 quadrillionths of a nanogram from an extremely dilute solution.

The researchers believe the sensing technology will also be useful in diagnosing and monitoring other diseases.

"The prognosis of many cancers depends on the stage of the cancer at diagnosis," says Giuseppe "Pino" Strangi, professor of physics at Case Western Reserve and leader of the research.

Read more: Scientists develop supersensitive biosensor for cancer

The researchers used nanostructured metamaterials 1 million times more sensitive
than previous versions, enabling an early detection system for cancer.

Source: medicalnewstoday

What is Cancer?

A Collection of Related Diseases

Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases. In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.

Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Normally, human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumors.

Many cancers form solid tumors, which are masses of tissue. Cancers of the blood, such as leukemias, generally do not form solid tumors.

Cancerous tumors are malignant, which means they can spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. In addition, as these tumors grow, some cancer cells can break off and travel to distant places in the body through the blood or the lymph system and form new tumors far from the original tumor.

Read more: What is Cancer?

Normal cells may become cancer cells.

Source: cancer.gov

Targeting Tumor Metastasis

Tumour metastasis, the movement of tumour cells from a primary site to progressively colonize distant organs, is a major contributor to the deaths of cancer patients. Therapeutic goals are the prevention of an initial metastasis in high-risk patients, shrinkage of established lesions and prevention of additional metastases in patients with limited disease. Instead of being autonomous, tumour cells engage in bidirectional interactions with metastatic microenvironments to alter antitumour immunity, the extracellular milieu, genomic stability, survival signalling, chemotherapeutic resistance and proliferative cycles. Can targeting of these interactions significantly improve patient outcomes? In this Review preclinical research, combination therapies and clinical trial designs are re-examined.

Metastases, or the consequences of their treatment, are the greatest contributors to deaths from cancer. Clinical metastatic disease results from several selective forces. Pathways that fuel initial tumorigenesis, described as the 'trunk' of a cancer evolutionary tree, can also endow tumour cells with metastatic properties and de novo drug resistance. Two types of 'limb' pathway emerge from the tree trunk: events that induce acquired resistance to therapy and pathways that induce or accelerate metastasis to distant organs1. Cancer therapy has largely concentrated on druggable targets in the trunk tumorigenesis pathways, such as receptor tyrosine kinases, and uses sequential and combination therapies to minimize drug resistance.

Read more: Targeting Tumor Metastasis

Source: NatureReviewsCancer

New nanoparticle 'cluster bombs' could make chemotherapy less toxic.

Chemotherapy is one of the key weapons in our fight against cancer, but it comes with a whole host of unwanted side effects and damage to the surrounding, healthy areas of the body. So an international team of researchers has come up with what they think could be a much less toxic way of delivering the treatment, and it's based around 'cluster bombs' of nanoparticles.

The new procedure is designed to improve the delivery of the chemotherapy drug cisplatin. It works using tiny nanoparticles, just 100 nanometres wide, which are loaded with drugs and transported to the tumor site through blood vessels. Once they reach their destination, the acidic environment around the cancer cells causes them to break up into 5-nanometre-wide particles, which can then move inside the tumor cells.

At this point, the cisplatin can do its work from inside the tumor cells, damaging the cancerous DNA to effectively kill them off. To give you some idea of the scale, you can fit a million nanometres inside a millimetre.

In tests on lab mice, the teams from Emory University in the US and the University of Science and Technology of China found that the concentration of cisplatin that reached the tumors was seven times higher than normal. And if more of the drug is reaching its intended target, that means less of it is leaking out into the rest of the body, so unwanted side effects are reduced.

Video source: New nanoparticle 'cluster bombs' could make chemotherapy less toxic.

Source: Jovan Vitanovski/Shutterstock