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U.S. cancer researchers

Statins studied in stem cell transplants

Thu, 12/10/2009 - 05:24 by harsheeb

Seattl-- U.S. cancer researchers say they've found drugs known as statins might protect stem cell transplant patients from graft-versus-host disease.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists said their retrospective study involved 567 patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation from matched sibling donors between 2001 and 2007. Patients whose donors had been taking statins at the time of stem cell donation were found to have experienced no severe acute graft-versus-host disease.

Attacking normal cells slows tumor growth

Fri, 11/20/2009 - 07:28 by harsheeb

Philadelphia -- U.S. cancer researchers say they've discovered targeting normal cells in tumors slows the growth of the cancer.

Wistar Institute scientists say attacking the normal cells that surround cancer cells within and around a tumor is a strategy that could greatly increase the effectiveness of traditional anti-cancer treatments.

"It's like taking away the soil from a seed that wants to grow," Professor Ellen Pure, senior author of the study, said. "These results provide a proof-of-principle that targeting and modifying a tumor's microenvironment may be an effective approach to treating solid tumors."

Cancer metastasis protein is discovered

Tue, 03/31/2009 - 20:37 by Shruti Sharma

Jacksonville, Fla -- U.S. cancer researchers say they've identified a molecule known as protein kinase D1 that is key to enabling a tumor cell to metastasize.

Mayo Clinic scientists in Florida say the finding may lead to a technique that can stop cancer from spreading elsewhere in the body -- the process that most often leads to death.

The researchers, led by cancer biologist Peter Storz, found that if PKD1 is active, tumor cells cannot move, a finding they say explains why PKD1 is silenced in some invasive cancers.

Storz's team has been investigating a process known as actin remodeling at the leading edge -- the most forward point -- of such migrating tumor cells.