Novel bispecific design improves CAR T–cell immunotherapy for childhood leukemia

Findings from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital showed a novel dual targeting approach, where a single molecule can recognize two potential cancer-related proteins, is more effective than the single targeting approach, preventing immune escape.

Brain tumor treatment by targeting TUG1, a gene that controls replication stress

A new study has unravelled a crucial link between how cancer cells cope with replication stress and the role of Taurine Upregulated Gene 1 (TUG1). By targeting TUG1 with a drug, the researchers were able to control brain tumor growth in mice, suggesting a potential strategy to combat aggressive brain tumors such as glioblastomas.

Genetically engineered vesicles target cancer cells more effectively

Nanovesicles can be bioengineered to target cancer cells and deliver treatments directly, according to research at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Cancerous brain tumor cells may be at ‘critical point’ between order and disorder, study suggests

Glioblastoma cells are poised near a “critical point” of order and disorder — meaning, the cells possess some form of large-scale coordination throughout the whole tumor that allows them to respond in practical unison to attempts to kill tumor cells, such as chemotherapy or radiation, a study suggests. Researchers say disrupting the large-scale organization of brain tumors may result in more powerful ways to treat and one day eliminate brain tumors.

How high-fat diets allow cancer cells to go unnoticed

A high-fat diet increases the incidence of colorectal cancer. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Fellow Semir Beyaz and collaborators from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that in mice, fat disrupts the relationship between intestinal cells and the immune cells that patrol them looking for emerging tumors.

Scientists Find a Pair of Proteins Control Supply Lines That Feed Cancer Cells

In human cancer cell and mouse studies, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine have found that a set of proteins work in tandem to build supply lines that deliver oxygen and nutrients to tumors, enabling them to survive and grow. The protein twosome, PADI4 and HIF-1, ramp up their activity under low-oxygen conditions that are typically found in a fast-growing tumor, allowing it to build new blood vessels that feed the cancer’s growth.

Study Adds to Evidence that Most Cancer Cells Grown in a Dish have Little in Common Genetically with Cancer Cells in People

In a bid to find or refine laboratory research models for cancer that better compare with what happens in living people, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists report they have developed a new computer-based technique showing that human cancer cells grown in culture dishes are the least genetically similar to their human sources.

Capturing the Chemistry of Light-Activated Cancer Drugs with Ruomei Gao

Ruomei Gao—an associate professor at SUNY College at Old Westbury—has been using facilities at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven Lab to investigate two primary processes of photosensitization for cancer therapy and prevention.

Ionic liquid formulation uniformly delivers chemotherapy to tumors while destroying cancerous tissue

A Mayo Clinic team, led by Rahmi Oklu, M.D., Ph.D., a vascular and interventional radiologist at Mayo Clinic, in collaboration with Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., of Harvard University, report the development of a new ionic liquid formulation that killed cancer cells and allowed uniform distribution of a chemotherapy drug into liver tumors and other solid tumors in the lab.

Scientists kill cancer cells by “shutting the door” to the nucleus

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have shown that blocking the construction of nuclear pores complexes—large channels that control the flow of materials in and out of the cell nucleus—shrank aggressive tumors in mice while leaving healthy cells unharmed. The study, published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, reveals a new Achilles heel for cancer that may lead to better treatments for deadly tumors such as melanoma, leukemia and colorectal cancer.