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.

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.

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.

Bioengineers have shown they can eradicate advanced-stage ovarian and colorectal cancer in mice in as little as six days with a treatment that could be ready for human clinical trials later this year.

Multiple myeloma, the most common type of bone marrow cancer in Germany, almost always returns, even after initial treatment success. In the majority of cases, the reasons behind this treatment resistance (e.g., genetic mutations) and the subsequent return of the disease, remain unknown. According to new research, it is the increased production of a specific protein which diminishes the cancer’s sensitivity to treatment.

The largest study to date has confirmed the link between the gut microbiome and the response to cancer immunotherapy therapy for melanoma.

A clinical trial has shown that the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab increased survival rates for head and neck cancer patients with intermediate risk.

Using computer drug simulations, researchers have found that doctors need to be wary of prescribing a promising treatment for all types of cancer and patients.

Many people have to take statins to lower their cholesterol levels. But statins may be able to do even more: Researchers report that these drugs inhibit a gene that promotes cancer cell metastasis.

Researchers have developed a new pH probe and imaging technique to provide researchers more information when studying diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Researchers have uncovered a new role of a chromatin-modulatory enzyme, termed EZH2, during cancer development. They then designed a new small-molecule, MS177, based on the proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology, that targets both EZH2 and cMyc and thus inhibits cancer growth.

Scientists say the unexpected discovery about small-cell lung cancer could lead to new treatment approaches for that cancer and other forms of cancer as well.

Researchers have uncovered how a process involved in the regeneration of tissue damaged by radiation can aid the spread of cancer.

A new study shows how certain RNA molecules control the repair of damaged DNA in cancer cells, a discovery that could eventually give rise to better cancer treatments.

Annual MRI screenings starting at ages 30 to 35 may reduce breast-cancer mortality by more than 50% among women who carry certain genetic changes in three genes, according to a comparative modeling analysis. The predictions involve pathogenic variants in ATM, CHEK2 and PALB2 genes — which collectively are as prevalent as the much-reported BRCA1/2 gene mutations.

Scientists have developed mathematical models that act as patient ’surrogates‘ for evaluating potential prostate cancer treatments.

Researchers found that some cancer cells weave a deactivating signal into a protective coat of armor, immobilizing and excluding T cells that would otherwise kill them. This immune deactivation pathway offers a promising new therapeutic approach for pancreatic, breast, and colorectal cancers.

Researchers surveyed and compared early- and late-stage breast and colorectal cancer diagnoses in patients in pre-pandemic 2019 and in 2020, the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic, discovering fewer of the former and more of the latter as patients delayed care.

A new study shows ixabepilone plus bevacizumab (IXA+BEV) is a well-tolerated, effective combination for treatment of platinum/taxane-resistant ovarian cancer compared to ixabepilone (IXA) alone.

A study is validating the use of genomic sequencing to predict the likelihood that patients with gastric cancer will derive benefit from chemotherapy or from immunotherapy.