Cancer

Oncolytic viruses- A one of a kind FDA approval
by Nishita Parnandi figures by Krissy Lyon One of the biggest challenges in treating cancer is to specifically target the cancerous site in a tissue without killing the surrounding normal cells. The use of oncolytic viruses is a new cancer treatment that…

New Directions for Cancer Therapy: Targeted Medicine
by Zachary Hauseman figures by Michael Gerhardt The cure for cancer: something we all hear about but never seems to arrive. It’s easy to get frustrated about decades and decades of research while thousands of people still succumb to the disease daily…

The Elephant in the Room: Gene Copy Number and Cancer
by Caitlin Nichols figures by Krissy Lyon We’ve all heard the saying that quality is more important than quantity. The preference for quality over quantity applies in the human body as well. Cancer, for instance, is caused by malfunctioning cells that…

Discovery of Anti-aging in Mammary Gland
Invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast, courtesy of Ed Uthman, Wikimedia CommonsA study shows that when a certain protein called Timp is lacking, there is an increase in the number of stem cells of the mammary gland (an organ in the breast),…

Why do male smokers have higher cancer rates than female smokers?
When it comes to smoking and cancer, men are mysteriously worse off: over 30% of cancer deaths in males are connected to smoking, compared to ~20% in women. It’s not all due to lung cancer either – male smokers also have a higher incidence of…

Can stem cells be engineered to battle brain cancer?
Gliobastoma (astrocytoma) WHO grade IV – MRI sagittal view, post contrast. By Christaras A via Creative Commons Treating glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) – the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer – is notoriously difficult. In…

New cancer drug promising, but has a long way to go
From wikimedia commons: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/EBC-46.svg/310px-EBC-46.svg.png A recent article published in Medical Express last week touts the impressive findings of a pre-clinical study on the experimental drug EBC-46…