Decoding the Language of Epigenetic Modifications

Epigenetic changes play important roles in cancer, metabolic and aging-related diseases, but also during loss of resilience as they cause the genetic material to be incorrectly interpreted in affected cells. A major study by scientists at Helmholtz Munich published in ’Nature’ now provides important new insights into how complex epigenetic modification signatures regulate the genome. This study will pave the way for new treatments of diseases caused by faulty epigenetic machineries.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Shredding to plan – protein recycling for immune defense

The waste system of living cells, the proteasome, not only shreds disused or damaged proteins. It also supports the immune system in recognizing virally infected or cancerous cells by producing protein fragments, so-called immunopeptides. In an international collaboration, researchers led by Juliane Liepe at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences have now simulated protein degradation by the proteasome in the laboratory and identified and quantified the peptides thereby produced. In future, the resulting data set could help predict immunopeptides and develop new vaccines against infectious diseases or cancer.

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Internationaler Kinderkrebstag: Neues Beratungsangebot des UKE | Fragen an… Priv.-Doz. Dr. Gabriele Escherich

Mehr als 2.000 Kinder und Jugendliche in Deutschland erkranken jährlich an Krebs. Wenn ein Kind oder ein Elternteil die Diagnose Krebs erhält, hat dies Auswirkungen auf das gesamte Familienleben. Das Universitäre Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH) des Universitätsklinikums Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) hat daher eine psychosoziale Beratungsstelle für an Krebs erkrankte Kinder, Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene sowie deren Familien eingerichtet. Anlässlich des Internationalen Kinderkrebstags am 15. Februar informiert Priv.-Doz. Dr. Gabriele Escherich, Oberärztin in der Klinik für Pädiatrische Hämatologie und Onkologie des UKE, über das neu geschaffene Angebot.

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New strategy for safer CAR T cell therapy in lymphomas

Scientists from University Hospital Cologne have developed a procedure in the laboratory that effectively fights the affected cells in lymphoma cancer, but does not damage healthy immune cells, which is often the case with comparable therapies / publication in ‘Cell Reports Medicine’

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New T-FINDER Platform Provides Deep Insights Into T Cell Responses Against Novel Cancer Vaccine

Researchers at the BioMed X Institute and the Universitätsmedizin Mannheim just published the results of their collaboration around a new neoepitope vaccine in diffuse midline glioma in Science Advances.

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Precursor of Cholesterol Protects Cells From Ferroptosis

A precursor of cholesterol, previously categorised as harmful, can protect cancer cells from cell death. This finding, published in Nature, opens new doors for cancer research.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Special RNA suppresses the formation of breast cancer cells

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. The development of breast cancer often originates from epithelial cells in the mammary gland – the very cells that specialise in milk production during and after pregnancy. A team of researchers from Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany), the university in Shenzhen (China) and Jena University Hospital (Germany) has taken a closer look at this specialisation process and deciphered a molecular mechanism that also appears to play an important role in cancer development. It may be possible to develop new diagnostic procedures and treatment methods for breast cancer based on these research findings.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New way to force pathogenic proteins into degradation

Researchers develop novel cancer protein killer and discover a new ligase for PROTACs

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Nanoparticles for optimized cancer therapy

Researchers from Göttingen and Karlsruhe have developed a new treatment approach for pancreatic cancer. The innovative method promises to be able to treat the disease in a more targeted way and with fewer side effects in the future. The therapy is now to be optimized for clinical application as quickly as possible.

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Reducing vitamin B5 slows breast cancer growth

Scientists have discovered in animal experiments that breast cancer cells heavily rely on vitamin B5 to grow and survive / Publication in ‘Nature Metabolism‘

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A Potential Target for New Anti-Cancer Agents

MYC proteins play an important role in many types of cancer. A research team at the University of Würzburg has now succeeded in indirectly influencing these proteins – with clear consequences for the tumor.

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Deceiving cancer to facilitate treatment The effect of the phenotypic plasticity of cancer cells and how to exploit it

Cancer cells are notorious for rapidly changing their phenotype, driving within-host spread and evading treatment. Scientists in Plön used a mathematical model to understand the role of a signal used by cancer cells to control their phenotype. By manipulating these signals, cancer cells can be tricked into a less harmful phenotype that is more responsive to treatments.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New insights into the prognostic power of gene expression signatures in breast cancer

When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, the difficult question arises as to which type of treatment is the right one. Gene expression testing is one of the methods used by doctors to help make a prognosis about the course of the disease and, based on this, to select a suitable therapy. However, the reliability of these tests has not been fully established. Scientists from Leipzig University and the Pathologie Hamburg-West institute have now used machine learning to analyse large amounts of data on this question and found that gene expression signatures offer a high degree of certainty in prognosis, but not complete certainty.

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DeepMB: A Deep Learning Framework For High-Quality Optoacoustic Imaging in Real-Time

Researchers at Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University of Munich have made significant progress in advancing high-resolution optoacoustic imaging for clinical use. Their innovative deep-learning framework, known as DeepMB, holds great promise for patients dealing with a range of illnesses, including breast cancer, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and inflammatory bowel disease. Their findings have been now published in Nature Machine Intelligence.

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Unraveling female resilience: Leveraging organ-on-chip technology to study the impact of menopause on re

Dynamic resilience, the ability of humans to withstand unexpected changes and stressors, is pivotal for maintaining bodily functions and overall health. Aging adults and especially women after menopause are at higher risk of adverse health outcomes (including frailty) in response to external stress situations such as cancer therapies or infections due to reduced dynamic resilience. Addressing the impact of female menopause on dynamic resilience and exploring preventive and therapeutic strategies is the aim of an international and interdisciplinary research group led by Prof. Dr. Peter Loskill from the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.

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Opportunities for cancer treatment and wound healing: Microrobots for the study of cells

– Cells are stimulated by robots measuring just 30 micrometers (µm)
– Technological platform developed to produce microrobots
– Ion channel mechanisms can be influenced

A group of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed the world’s first microrobot (“microbot”) capable of navigating within groups of cells and stimulating individual cells. Berna Özkale Edelmann, a professor of Nano- and Microrobotics, sees potential for new treatments of human diseases.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New „radar“ detects active cellular destroyers

Our cells have a fleet of 300 molecular machines, called cullin-RING ligases, or „CRLs“ for short, that each is capable of triggering destruction of specific proteins for the well-being of our cells. However, most proteins are needed, therefore only those that block newly required cellular paths or that are toxic should be destroyed. The destructive potential of CRLs is tightly controlled. CRLs are switched on only temporarily, when needed. Researchers at MPI of Biochemistry and University of Waterloo have developed a new way to detect those CRLs in the fleet that are „on”, which reveals the CRLs deployed to solve cellular stresses and to perform the actions of some anti-cancer drugs.

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AI Predictions for Colorectal Cancer: One Step Closer to Efficient Precision Oncology

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks second in leading causes of cancer-related deaths globally, according to the WHO. For the first time, researchers from Helmholtz Munich and the University of Technology Dresden (TU Dresden) show that artificial intelligence (AI)-based predictions can deliver comparable results to clinical tests on biopsies of patients with CRC. AI predictions can speed up the analysis of tissue samples, resulting in faster treatment decisions. This novel model for biomarker detection represents a significant stride towards the realization of precision therapy approaches in the field of oncology. The method is now published in Cancer Cell.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Innovative computational approach helps design proteins for cancer treatment

The computational design of new proteins for biomedical or other applications involves long computing times on powerful servers. A joint team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and the University Hospital Tübingen has now developed and tested a new computational method to greatly speed up the necessary energy calculations. Their framework, now published in the journal Cell Reports Methods, allows for a precise and efficient design of functional proteins. Evidencing the usefulness of their findings, the researchers developed two classes of proteins which can be deployed in cancer diagnostics and treatment.

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Behandlung primärer Lebertumoren signifikant verbessert – Früherkennung entscheidend für den Erfolg der neuen Therapien

Gießen, Hannover, Köln – Leberzellkrebs (Hepatozelluläres Karzinom, HCC) zählt weltweit zu den häufigsten krebsbedingten Todesursachen. Auch einige Tumore der Gallenwege (biliary tract cancer, BTC), wie beispielsweise das Gallengangskarzinom (Cholangiozelluläres Karzinom, CCC), zählen zu diesen primären Lebertumoren und sind ebenso mit einer hohen Sterblichkeitsrate verbunden. Warum Früherkennung besonders bei Lebertumoren wichtig ist und welche beträchtlichen Fortschritte die Therapien gemacht haben, erläutern die Ausrichter des 24. Deutschen Lebertages im Vorfeld des bundesweiten Aktionstages.

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Research Grants Endowed with €240,000

The application period for the DKMS John Hansen Research Grant 2024 began on August 1, 2023. With this grant, the foundation DKMS Stiftung Leben Spenden supports up to four outstanding research projects in the field of stem cell transplantation or cell therapy each year. A stem cell transplant saves the lives of many blood cancer patients. However, relapses and severe complications continue to pose major challenges. The grant is intended to promote excellent science in this field. The application deadline is November 30, 2023.

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Melanomforschung: Ob die Immuncheckpoint-Therapie wirkt, entscheidet Interleukin-17

Immun Checkpoint-Inhibitoren (ICI) sind hochwirksame Medikamente in der modernen Krebstherapie. Ihr Einsatz hat auch bei Melanompatient:innen die Überlebenschancen verbessert. Aber nicht alle Erkrankten profitieren gleichermaßen. Ein Team von Forschenden der Medizinischen Fakultät der Universität Duisburg-Essen und Deutschem Konsortium für Translationale Krebsforschung (DKTK), Partnerstandort Essen/Düsseldorf, hat nun einen Faktor gefunden, der das Ansprechen auf die ICI-Therapie maßgeblich beeinflusst: das Zytokin Interleukin-17, kurz IL-17. Die Ergebnisse wurden kürzlich in „Nature Cancer“ veröffentlicht.

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On the right track – Novel treatment approach for soft tissue tumors

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute on Aging in Jena and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg have discovered a novel treatment approach for soft tissue tumors, which are frequently occurring in children and are often malignant. Through the targeted transformation of the tumor cells into muscle cells, they succeeded in stopping the growth of the cells and thereby the growth of the tumor. This opens completely new therapeutic options in cancer treatment.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Fighting brain cancer

Glioblastomas are among the most aggressive kinds of brain tumors. Even immunotherapy treatments that have proved effective against other cancers seem to be powerless against them. Researchers at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have now described how to improve the immune system’s chances against this type of tumor.

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Significant Progress in Cancer Imaging

Groundbreaking method offers a fast and cost-effective way to observe abnormal metabolic processes live in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner / Production of biological contrast agents / Publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition

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