New research has linked phthalates, commonly called the ‚everywhere chemical,‘ to higher incidence of specific childhood cancers.

A research team has discovered novel metabolic mechanisms that contribute to how ovarian cancer escapes from immune attack, and how combination therapies can exploit these pathways to improve ovarian cancer treatment.

Tumors can use an enzyme called ART1 to thwart antitumor immune cells, making the enzyme a promising new target for immunity-boosting cancer treatments, according to a new study.

Scientists have developed a genetic screening platform to identify genes that can enhance immune cells to make them more persistent and increase their ability to eradicate tumor cells.

Different activity in two molecular networks could help explain why triple negative breast cancers tend to be more aggressive in African American (AA) women compared with white American (WA) women, a new study suggests.

Treating cancer and other diseases with laser light is not currently considered routine, but new approaches using nanoparticles show some promise in improving existing techniques. Researchers review the status of the field and by combining photothermal therapy or photodynamic therapy with nanomaterials, they have been able to apply these types of phototherapies while also delivering drugs to sites in the body that are otherwise inaccessible. It is also possible to combine PTT and PDT into a single treatment, creating an even more powerful treatment method.

The p53 protein protects our cells from cancer and is an interesting target for cancer treatments. The problem is, however, that it breaks down rapidly in the cell. Researchers have now found an unusual way of stabilizing the protein and making it more potent. By adding a spider silk protein to p53, they show that it is possible to create a protein that is more stable and capable of killing cancer cells.

Irradiation with fast protons is a more effective and less invasive cancer treatment than X-rays. However, modern proton therapy requires large particle accelerators, which has experts investigating alternative accelerator concepts, such as laser systems to accelerate protons. Such systems are deployed in preclinical studies to pave the way for optimal radiation therapy. A research team has now successfully tested irradiation with laser protons on animals.

New research has begun to unravel the mystery of why a particular form of leukaemia in infants has defied efforts to improve outcomes, despite significant improvements in treating older children. Scientists have now found subtle differences in the cell type that causes B acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) that may help to explain why some cases are more severe than others.

Both nanomedicines and metronomic scheduling — when medications are given at lower, more frequent doses — can correct abnormalities surrounding tumors that help protect cancer cells and foster their growth and spread. Combining nanomedicines and metronomic scheduling may help improve cancer treatment strategies.

Scientists have identified a way to ’supercharge‘ tumor-attacking T cells, a finding that may not only improve the effectiveness of a promising type of cell-based cancer immunotherapy but also expand the number of cancers it can treat.

New research has identified that the frequently used chemotherapy drug (5-FU or Fluorouracil) is 100 per cent more effective at targeting tumors (rather than surrounding tissues) when administered using an optimized liposomal formulation.

Radiation therapy is one of the cornerstones of cancer therapy. However, some types of tumor respond little or hardly at all to radiation. If it were possible to make tumor cells more sensitive, treatment would be more effective and gentler. Empa and ETH Zurich researchers have now succeeded in using metal oxide nanoparticles as „radiosensitizers“ – and in producing them on an industrial scale.

With the resurgence of interest in cancer metabolism, researchers are coming to realize that there is more to a cell’s biochemistry than once thought.

Scientists may better understand and test for the genetic variations that cause cancer and other heritable diseases through the application of federated analysis, a novel strategy for securely sharing and analyzing genomic data developed at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute.

Amyloid beta, a protein known to build-up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, also helps skin cancer cells thrive when they spread to the brain, a new study finds.

Researchers have successfully leveraged an FDA-approved drug to halt growth of tumors driven by mutations in the RAS gene, which are famously difficult to treat and account for about one in four cancer deaths.

A researcher has made a discovery that alters our understanding of how the body’s DNA repair process works and may lead to new chemotherapy treatments for cancer and other disorders. Researchers discovered that base excision repair has a built-in mechanism to increase its effectiveness — it just needs to be captured at a very precise point in the cell life cycle.

Squeezing through tight spaces makes cancer cells more aggressive and helps them evade cell death, shows a new study.

Researchers developed an algorithm estimating a person’s risk of developing prostate cancer based on age and the levels of two prostate cancer markers, PSA and hK2 (human kalliknein peptidase). They found that, by setting a risk threshold above which men are counted as ’screen positive‘, the approach would reduce the number of false positives by three quarters compared to a standard PSA test, while catching the same proportion of cancers.

A new study — in mice — suggests that blocking a major inflammatory pathway that is activated in pancreatic cancer makes the tumors sensitive to chemotherapy and a type of immunotherapy that prompts the immune system’s T cells to attack the cancer cells. The therapy more than doubled survival in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer.

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, or PI3K for short, is a family of lipid kinases that plays a key role in the human body, performing functions such as cell division, metabolism, and cell growth. While class I PI3Kα is well-researched and an important target for cancer drugs, little is known about class II of this lipid kinase family. Now, researchers from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) have been able to shed light on its structure and function. The results pave the way for the development of new types of antithrombotic drugs. Moreover, it is likely that the inhibition of class II PI3KC2α is able to arrest tumor angiogenesis.

Researchers have developed a new fluorescent label that gives a clearer picture of how DNA architecture is disrupted in cancer cells. The findings could improve cancer diagnoses for patients and classification of future cancer risk.

For years, surgery for patients with stage III melanoma — melanoma that has spread to the lymph nodes — involved removing those lymph nodes along with the primary tumor. Known as completion lymph node dissection (CLND), the surgery was meant to ensure that no cancer remained after surgery. More recently, however, cancer surgeons have discovered that CLND has the potential to cause more problems than it solves. In most cases, patients do better on immunotherapy alone than they do when their surgery involves removal of the lymph nodes, due to potential complications from lymph node surgery.

A new meta-analysis, or data examination of several independent studies, adds to evidence that taller adults may be more likely than shorter ones to develop colorectal cancer or colon polyps that can later become malignant.