#cancer

Ugh: Cancers Have Their Own Fungus BiomesOur bodies contain entire ecosystems of microbes that aid our various functions, particularly digestion. Without the help of healthy bacteria, we can't break down many of the nutrients we need. While most of the microbes that live inside us are bacteria, we also have some fungi that are almost always harmless. Recent studies show that cancers also carry their own microbiome, which includes both bacteria and fungi. Two studies were published this week in the journal Cell that deal with the fungus that lives in cancers. They live inside the cancer cells, often along with bacteria, and they sometimes work together. Different types of fungus live in different types of cancer, which may have something to do with how lethal a particular type of cancer is. So far, the fungus studies show a correlation, which does not mean causation. Read more about the fungi that live in our cancer cells at Gizmodo.(Image credit: Richard.Reezigt) #cancer #fungus

Eagle-Eyed Hockey Fan Spotted a Cancerous Mole on a Vancouver Canucks Staffer in the Middle of a Game and Saved His LifeWhen Nadia Popovici, a 22-year-old incoming medical student, went to the Seattle Kraken’s hockey team’s first home game, little did she know that she’d end up saving a man’s life and getting a nice $10,000 reward at the same time.Eagle-eyed Popovici sat behind the visiting team’s bench, when she noticed a dangerous mole at the back of the neck of Brian (Red) Hamilton of the Vancouver Canucks. “I spotted some of the classic signs, you know, irregular borders, a little bit of discoloration and a pretty large diameter,” Popovici said to CBC News. “I thought, you know, it can’t hurt just to say something.”Popovici wrote a note on her cell phone and held it up to the plexiglass behind the Canucks bench to tell Hamilton that his mole could possibly be cancerous. At first, Hamilton dismissed her note, but later he thought better of it and consulted their team doctor who confirmed that it was indeed a malignant melanoma. Left untreated, the mole could lead to a life-threatening condition.The Seattle Kraken and Vancouver Canucks jointly awarded Popovici a $10,000 scholarship for medical school as a show of their appreciation for Popovici’s good deed.#mole #melanoma #cancer #hockey #SeattleKraken #VancouverCanucks #gooddeedImage: CBC News

Microscopic Robots in the Works to Deliver Anti-Cancer DrugsYou may remember the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, in which a futuristic submarine and crew were shrunken small enough to travel through a man's bloodstream and pulverize a blood clot from the inside. While we still cannot shrink people, tiny robots are in development to do medical work from the inside of bodies here in the real world. These microscopic robots are made of hydrogel, in the shape of fish, crabs, or butterflies to see which shapes can best deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancerous sites. They are coated in magnetic nanoparticles, and after injection are steered to the cancer by magnets outside the body. They are programmed to release the drugs when they encounter a more acidic environment near a tumor. So while these are not exactly autonomous robots, they could be a miracle for targeting medication.

Study Reveals Why High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes You Fat: It Expands Gut Surface and Boosts Nutrition AbsorptionFructose is a type of sugar commonly found in fruits. There is also artificial fructose, created through the use of enzymes that convert glucose into the said type of sugar. An example of this is high fructose corn syrup, an artificial sweetener made from cornstarch. While fructose is generally not harmful to our bodies, overconsumption of it is.This research, published over a month ago in the journal Nature, revealed how fructose could be dangerous. Fructose alters the cells in the digestive tract of mice. Scientists state that these findings could explain the link between fructose consumption and increased rates of obesity and certain types of cancer.The study found that mice that were fed diets that included fructose had villi that were 25 percent to 40 percent longer than those of mice that were not fed fructose. Additionally, the increase in villus length was associated with increased nutrient absorption, weight gain and fat accumulation in the animals.“Fructose is structurally different from other sugars like glucose, and it gets metabolized differently,” said senior author Dr. Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, the Ralph L. Nachman Research Scholar, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and an endocrinologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “Our research has found that fructose’s primary metabolite promotes the elongation of villi and supports intestinal tumor growth.”[...]Future research will aim to confirm that the findings in mice translate to humans.This research reminds us of two things: to eat moderately and that anything too much is not good.(Image Credit: Taylor et al. (Research authors))#Fructose #Obesity #Cancer

Engineers Grow Pancreatic Organoids to Develop Treatments for Pancreatic CancerOne of the most dangerous types of cancer is pancreatic cancer. In the US, the disease ranks 4th in the types of cancer with the highest age-adjusted mortality rate. It is also one of the most difficult types of cancer to treat. Currently, the only types of treatment available for pancreatic cancer are surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and palliative care, but scientists are looking for new ways to treat this disease. Recently, MIT engineers have grown tiny replicas of the pancreas using either healthy or cancerous pancreatic cells. With these models, researchers can gain new insights with regards to how pancreatic tumors interact with their environment.The engineers were able to make these tiny replicas using a specialized gel that mimicked the extracellular environment that surrounded the pancreas.Unlike some of the gels now used to grow tissue, the new MIT gel is completely synthetic, easy to assemble and can be produced with a consistent composition every time.[...]The researchers have also shown that their new gel can be used to grow other types of tissue, including intestinal and endometrial tissue.Learn more about this exciting study over at MIT News.(Image Credit: Below et al.)#Cancer #Biotechnology #BiologicalEngineering #PancreaticCancer #Research

A Cancer-Quashing Microbe Emerges from the DeepWhile we often think of them as life-threatening, bacteria are so numerous and so varied that these microbes have saved countless people from death. Through several decades in the 20th century, scientists harnessed bacteria to produce natural but specific chemical compounds that could be used to prevent and/or treat disease, particularly the useful class called Actinomycetes. The more exotic the bacteria's habitat, the more specific these chemicals turned out to be. But it's hard to find new bacteria. Oceanographer Paul Jensen and chemist William Fenical teamed up to look into the ocean depths for marine bacteria that were different from their landlocked cousins, in order to study their potentially useful chemical talents.At the time, says Fenical, the consensus among pharmaceutical microbiologists was that actinomycetes lived only on land, and therefore “nothing was important in the oceans.” But Fenical suspected that a sampling bias drove that conclusion, and in June 1989, he and Jensen traveled to the Bahamas to see for themselves, collecting vials of ocean-floor sediment from 15 different locations at depths of up to 33 meters. Back at the lab, it didn’t take long for the two scientists to prove the naysayers wrong. When they cultured their samples, they found 289 separate actinomycete colonies. Some of these bacteria, members of a new genus that they later named Salinispora, had never been documented on land. Moreover, they were most abundant in the deeper samples, suggesting that they hadn’t simply washed into the ocean with terrestrial runoff. And then there was the kicker: Salinispora grew only in salt water.Working with a team of colleagues, Jensen eventually identified two different species of Salinispora bacteria from the Bahamian samples, both of which produced unique active compounds. One of these species, S. tropica, made a molecule that would change the course of their careers. When Fenical tested it on a line of difficult-to-kill human colon cancer cells, the compound passed with flying colors. He then sent it to labs at the National Cancer Institute to be tested against a panel of 60 different cancer cells. The results were exactly what Jensen and Fenical wanted to see: the compound, which they named salinosporamide A, was especially active against some cancer cell lines, but not others.“You want that selectivity, because if it kills all cancer cells equally, then it’s probably also going to equally kill noncancerous cells,” Jensen explains. It seemed they had the makings of a viable drug on their hands: a compound that could target a tumor without killing the person it afflicted.Read how salinosporamide A, also called marizomib, went from a bacterial product to a life-saving medicine at Hakai magazine. The article is also a look into how networks of scientists in the field, the lab, and in patient care have to work together to advance medical science. -via Real Clear Science#medicine #bacteria #cancer

Oscillating Magnetic Field Shown to Reduce Glioblastoma Tumor MassGlioblastoma is an aggressive type of cancer that affect the brain and the spinal cord and is almost always fatal. But there may be hope in the future, as there is a new treatment method developed by researchers that could help shrink the tumor.The treatment relies on something you don't normally associate with cancer treatment: magnets.The experimental treatment, using a device called the Oncomagnetic Device is composed of three rotating permanent magnets attached to a helmet and connected to a microprocessor-based electronic controller that is operated by a rechargeable battery. The magnets, which rotate in a specific frequency profile and timing pattern, create a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field.The Oncomagnetic Device was shown to reduce tumor mass by 31% in a  53-year-old glioblastoma patient who suffered from end-stage recurrent glioblastoma, despite surgery, chemo- and radiation therapy and experimental gene therapy. The patient died one month into the treatment due to an unrelated injury, but during that short time it was effective in reducing the tumor mass."Imagine treating brain cancer without radiation therapy or chemotherapy," said David Baskin of Houston Methodist, "our results in the laboratory and with this patient open a new world of non-invasive and nontoxic therapy for brain cancer, with many exciting possibilities for the future."#cancer #braincancer #glioblastoma #magnet #OncomagneticDeviceImage: Houston Methodist