Mutations in Cancer protein suggest new treatments

Scientists have struggled to find a way to block a protein known to play an important role in many cancers. The protein, STAT3, acts as a transcription factor, it performs the crucial task of helping convert DNA into the RNA instructions used to make new proteins. When overly active, STAT3 performs this task too well, fueling the growth and division of abnormal cells, and contributing to cancer. Scientists have taken various approaches to selectively blocking STAT3 in cancer, but none have produced successful treatments. Researchers led by Rockefeller University's James E. Darnell, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology, have suggested a new way to target STAT3. They report successfully disrupting STAT3's ability to act as a transcription factor, suggesting a basis for new, targeted approaches to fighting cancer. "We have described some interesting mutations in the STAT3 protein that, if we could mimic with a drug, could become very valuable tools in our fight against cancer," says Darnell, Vincent Astor Professor Emeritus at Rockefeller. "Three of the mutations, for instance, enable the STAT3 dimer to bind to DNA, but prevent the transcription of that DNA into RNA instructions for protein synthesis, a crucial step for cancer cells," says Darnell.
"What's the good of knowing the intricacies of how proteins work if we can't use that information to stop cancer in a targeted way?" 

A new synthetic material that's strong enough to fill gaps in bone while stimulating new bone growth could advance the grafting treatments needed by people suffering from bone cancer and other bone defects, says a biomedical engineer at Texas A&M University who is developing the technology.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-11-material-advance-bone-grafting-treatments-cancer.html#jCp

A new synthetic material that's strong enough to fill gaps in bone while stimulating new bone growth could advance the grafting treatments needed by people suffering from bone cancer and other bone defects, says a biomedical engineer at Texas A&M University who is developing the technology.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-11-material-advance-bone-grafting-treatments-cancer.html#jCp