To prevent our body’s cells from overflowing with garbage and to keep them healthy, the waste inside them is constantly being disposed of. This cleaning process is called autophagy. Scientists have now, for the first time, rebuilt the complex nanomachine in the laboratory that starts this process – and it works quite differently from other cellular machines. The researchers’ new insights could help open up new approaches for the treatment of cancer, immune disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases in the future, and possibly even delay aging.

Anlässlich des „European Cancer Nursing Day“ am 18. Mai 2023 präsentiert die Universitätsmedizin Halle „GRAN-ONCO“ – die erste Forschungsagenda für die onkologische Pflege in Deutschland.

An international team of researchers from the University of Georgia, USA, and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, presents a promising strategy for elucidating metabolic pathways for plant compounds of medicinal importance. The research team studied the biosynthesis of two alkaloids from the plant Catharanthus roseus that are used in human medicine as anti-cancer agents. By using single-cell analyses, the scientists were able to discover new genes important for biosynthesis and show that the intermediates of the metabolic pathway accumulate in specific cell types.

Should patients over the age of 70 with head and neck cancer receive aggressive combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy? This is a controversial issue among patients, their families and health professionals. A large-scale international study involving Leipzig University Hospital proves the effectiveness of this combined treatment in older patients. The findings have recently been published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

How do the nerve cells in our brain communicate with each other? What processes take place when T cells render cancer cells harmless? Details of the mechanisms at the cellular level remain hidden from view. Now, special reporter proteins developed by a research team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) may help unveil these mechanisms.

«Physics against cancer» ist ein Buch über die Entstehung der Protonentherapie am Paul Scherrer Institut PSI.

Ein Konsortium der Onkologischen Spitzenzentren (Comprehensive Cancer Center) in Dresden, Frankfurt-Marburg und Leipzig/Jena entwickelt eine neuartige Gentherapie zur Behandlung eines besonders bösartigen hirneigenen Tumors (Glioblastom). Ziel ist es, gleichzeitig ein Tumor-unterdrückendes Gen (p53) in die Krebszellen einzuschleusen und Mechanismen zu unterbinden, welche die Genfunktion blockieren können. Hierfür entwickeln die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler unter anderem ein neues Nanopartikel-Transportsystem.

Almost every fourth person who dies of cancer has a hollow organ tumour, for example in the bile duct or in the oesophagus. Such a tumour cannot usually be removed surgically. It is only possible to open the hollow organ for a short time using a stent, i.e. a tube-shaped prosthesis. However, the tumour grows back and penetrates the hollow organ through the stent. Ioana Slabu from the Institute of Applied Medical Technology and Benedict Bauer from the Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University have now developed a novel technology for the therapy of hollow organ tumours, which was awarded second place in the RWTH Innovation Award.

Damage in the human genome can be repaired. But this works better in germ cells, sperm and eggs, than in normal body cells. Responsible for this is the DREAM protein complex, which prevents the activation of all available repair mechanisms. A research team at the University of Cologne has now shown that normal body cells can also be repaired better once this complex has been deactivated. In the long run, the scientists hope to develop better therapies to prevent cancer and aging-associated diseases. They describe their results in ‘Nature Structural & Molecular Biology’

For in vivo studies of internal processes in an organism, body pigmentation is a considerable limitation. To circumvent this, various transparent fish models have already been generated, and are used in cancer research, among other things. In research on aging, however, these fish are rarely being used due to their relatively long lifespan of up to five years. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in Jena have now succeeded, with the help of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology, in generating a transparent killifish (N. furzeri) called “klara”, which, with a maximum lifespan of only one year, is ideal for in vivo studies of age-related processes.

Resistance to HER2-targeted therapies can be a problem when treating patients with HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer. Therefore, the identification of new therapies for this patient group is important. Researchers at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environments and Human Factors in Dortmund (IfADo) have already shown that the enzyme EDI3 is associated with changes in the metabolism of cancer cells. Their most recent results reveal that inhibiting EDI3 may be a new therapeutic target in patients with therapy-resistant ER-HER2+ breast cancer.

The accumulation of the metabolite fumarate in the mitochondrion, the powerhouse of a cell, can cause inflammation associated with diseases such as cancer and autoimmune diseases / Publication in Nature

RIANA Therapeutics, a promising pharmaceutical start-up recently spun out of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni), aims to develop novel therapeutics for cancer patients based in part on scientific findings from Vetmeduni’s Moriggl research group (Moriggl Lab). The technological basis is a proprietary platform technology for the discovery of drugs that target cancer-causing protein-protein interactions (PPIs).

Kiel research team discovers links between certain gene mutation and the spatial structure of DNA in blood cancer at an advanced age

Hollow spheres made of MYC proteins open new doors in cancer research. Würzburg scientists have discovered them and report about this breakthrough in the journal „Nature“.

Researchers at Georg-Speyer-Haus and Goethe University Frankfurt have discovered a new mechanism that explains why only some of the cells in a colon tumour respond to chemotherapy. The research team led by Professor Florian Greten was able to establish that tumour cells dying off during chemotherapy communicate one last time with neighbouring tumour cells to give them instructions on how to resist the therapy. The dying cells re-programme the signalling cascades in the neighbouring tumour cells in such a way that these are no longer vulnerable to chemotherapy. By doing so, the dying cells literally ensure that the tumour survives.

Scientists have identified the loss of the protein HIRA (histone cell cycle regulator) as a possible driving factor in a highly metastatic form of kidney cancer / study in ‘Science Advances’ opens up new perspectives for targeted therapies

Joint press release by the NCT/UCC Dresden and the NCT Heidelberg

The NCT is a cross-site cooperation between the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) in Heidelberg, as well as the DKFZ, the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, the Carl Gustav Carus Faculty of Medicine at TU Dresden and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Dresden.

Hereditary genetic mutations play an important role in oncogenesis, but they usually remain undetected.

The Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA) has analysed whether risk-based breast cancer screening has advantages over the conventional age-based screening programme. The central result: the current prediction models cannot satisfactorily predict the individual breast cancer risk. Only large studies which are currently in progress will provide robust data on whether women can expect health advantages compared to conventional practice. „In any case, such a system needs extensive preparation. Simply assessing risk factors in women without thinking about further consequences has no benefit for women,“ emphasises Ingrid Zechmeister-Koss, deputy director of the AIHTA.

The ancient Egyptians, as described in the Ebers Papyrus, already knew that palpation –feeling for hardened lumps – can help diagnose breast cancer. Palpation is still an important element in early screening for breast cancer. On the other hand, measurements on individual cancer cells show that they are softer than the healthy epithelial cells from which they stem, which probably makes them better able to metastasise in dense human tissue. An international collaborative project led by the Soft Matter Physics Division at Leipzig University got to the bottom of this apparent paradox and has now published its findings in the renowned journal Nature Physics.

Development of medical treatment against cancer is a major research topic worldwide – but cancer often manages to circumvent the solutions found. Scientists around Tanja Weil and David Ng at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), have now taken a closer look at the cancer’s countermeasures and aim to stop them. By disrupting the cellular components that are responsible for converting oxygen into chemical energy, they have demonstrated initial success in eliminating cells derived from untreatable metastatic cancer.

Cancer is the third most common cause of death in people with spinal cord injury (SCI), with bladder cancer being the second most common cancer after lung cancer. It is not uncommon for bladder cancer in SCI patients to be discovered only as an advanced variant, muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), which is a very aggressive form. In these cases, only a radical cystectomy, the removal of the urinary bladder including the lymph nodes in the pelvic cavity, offers a chance of cure. Since the surgery of SCI patients with bladder cancer is associated with an increased risk, a team of researchers has compiled a list of recommendations for action to minimise the risk.

Scientists with a research focus on stem cell transplantation and cell therapy are invited to apply for the 2023 DKMS John Hansen Research Grant starting August 10, 2022. With this grant, the DKMS Stiftung Leben Spenden (Foundation for Giving Life) supports up to four outstanding research projects each year that aim to advance the medical progress and improve the chances of recovery for blood cancer patients. The requirements include a doctoral degree (PhD, MD or equivalent) that was obtained no longer than 10 years ago. The grants are endowed with €240,000 each, which will be paid out over a period of three years. The application deadline is December 2, 2022.

Although there has been significant progress in the treatment of rare forms of blood cancer in recent years and new drugs have been approved in Germany, the prognosis for many affected individuals remains unfavourable. Research teams at Leipzig University’s Faculty of Medicine are working in several preclinical and translational projects to gain a better understanding of these diseases. The researchers are investigating how bone marrow cancer develops. In addition, they have found a new molecular functional mechanism and have shown that patients with even low amounts of leukaemia cells have a high risk of relapse. The results have been published in journals.

Proteins that are frequently altered in tumors play a prominent role in cancer research. The protein RFX7, a largely unknown transcription factor, has recently been linked to lymph node cancer. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in Jena have now partially elucidated the function of this protein. RFX7 acts as a tumor suppressor and counteracts the development of cancer. Once activated, it induces other tumor suppressors and inhibits important growth regulators. The reactivation of RFX7 could therefore be of substantial interest in future cancer studies.