Laboratory discovers new antibody function

The international consortium led by Ambati found that the most abundant class of antibodies, known as IgG1s, also generically block blood vessel growth, an unexpected finding with far-reaching implications. Therapeutic human antibodies, most of which are IgG1s and account for more $75 billion in annual sales worldwide, are commonly used to treat various diseases such as arthritis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, leukemia and asthma.
Ambati's laboratory found that FDA-approved and widely used monoclonal antibodies such as Humira, Campath, Lemtrada, Arzerra, Xolair, Synagis, Actemra, and Avastin could inhibit blood vessel growth independent of their intended targets. Moreover, the researchers also showed that intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a low-cost mixture of human antibodies used to treat many autoimmune diseases, also blocked blood vessel growth.
These two groundbreaking studies used not only preclinical models of macular degeneration, peripheral arterial disease, colon cancer, but also verified the clinical relevance of their findings by examining biopsied tissue from organ transplant patients before and after IVIg therapy.
"Given the widespread use of monoclonal antibodies for many diseases, both in the eye and beyond, these findings have broad clinical implications," said Ambati.

Incyte stops tests on Jakafi to treat Colorectal Cancer

Incyte Corp said that it would stop a mid-stage study on its combination treatment after it failed to prove to be sufficiently effective to treat metastatic colorectal cancer.
The results cast a shadow on the prospects of the drug, Jakafi, which is also being studied in a late-stage trial to treat advanced pancreatic cancer.
Jakafi is an FDA-approved drug to treat people with bone marrow disorders such as polycythemia vera and blood disorders including myelofibrosis.
Incyte was testing Jakafi in combination with Bayer AG's Regorafenib to treat metastatic colorectal cancer, in which diseased cells break away from the colon or rectum and spread to form tumors on other organs.

New fiber-optic technology could target Cancer tumors

Light has healing properties, and a new fiber-optics technology developed by scientists at the University of St. Andrews promises to deliver those properties to damaged tissue.
The technology is called photo-chemical tissue bonding. Until now, it's been used only to treat superficial wounds. Researchers have developed a technique that allows the light to penetrate deeper into human tissue.
Scientists developed biodegradable optical fibers capable of carrying light beneath the surface of a wound, delivering the light's healing powers to a local point internally.
Fiber-optic strands for catheters are normally made of glass or plastic. Removing them from a healed wound can cause damage to the new tissue. Because the newly developed fibers can be naturally absorbed into tissue, the risks of removal are eliminated.
The fiber-optic technology could improve a light-based cancer treatment technique known as photodynamic therapy. It could also be used in medical imaging.
"A variety of optical techniques, such as photochemical tissue bonding and photodynamic therapy, require efficient delivery of light deep into tissues, but the current limited penetration of light in tissue constitutes a serious constraint in clinical use."

Roche expects Cancer treatments to be spared U.S. pricing curbs

The U.S. Congress may intervene on how much companies can charge for some drugs following a move last year by Turing Pharmaceuticals to ratchet up the price of a treatment for deadly parasite infections by 5,000 percent, Roche's head of pharmaceuticals said.
Roche's Dan O'Day is convinced the oncology portfolio at the world's biggest maker of cancer drugs will not be affected, arguing it offers innovative treatments for diseases with few other options.
O'Day acknowledged Turing's price hike for Daraprim had galvanized U.S. public concern as well as political will to tackle drugmakers who are perceived as abusing pricing power to gouge patients.
"It's really a misuse of the system," O'Day said. "And there very well may be some legislation that stops that from happening."
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been campaigning on the issue.
U.S. prices for the world's 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters for last year.
Novartis Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez, whose company includes the Sandoz generics unit, said on Wednesday he expects the U.S. pricing environment to grow "more difficult".

Cancer Treatment shows ability to reverse MS Symptoms

A medical treatment intended for cancer patients appears to be able to reverse the effects of multiple sclerosis (MS), as well–and some people paralyzed by the condition have been able to walk again.
About 20 patients suffering from MS in Sheffield, England were given bone marrow transplants using their own stem cells.The treatment, haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), first destroys a faulty immune system in cancer patients, then uses the stem cell transplant to rebuild it.
Hospitals in the UK, U.S., Sweden, and Brazil are taking part in international trials gauging the long-term benefits of the procedure on MS patients.
As with cancer patients, those with MS would need to endure multiple rounds of chemotherapy to effectively destroy their faulty immune system before the transplant can reboot it.
The one time cost of the stem-cell transplant, $43,000, is about the same as the yearly cost of standard MS treatments.

New drug approved for Skin Cancer treatment

A groundbreaking new drug for skin cancer has been given the go-ahead for use in the NHS after England's drug cost watchdog decided that the £5,700 per month price was good value for money.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommended nivolumab, (also called Opdivo), a type of immunotherapy which stimulates the body's immune system to fight cancer cells.

Research has found that melanoma
patients survive much longer on the drug, which is administered by drip, than those given conventional chemotherapy.

The one-year survival rate was 73 per cent for those on nivolumab compared to 42 per cent for chemotherapy.

It is thought that the drug should benefit 1,400 patients a year and experts urged Nice to make it available to more patients.

Study finds a link between Cancer, bankruptcy and death

Bankruptcies are a proxy of sorts for cancer’s heavy financial toll; since filings are tracked and measurable, researchers can use them to determine how skyrocketing cancer costs impact society. In a watershed study published in 2013, Ramsey found that cancer patients, on average, were about 2.5 times more likely to declare bankruptcy as those without cancer.
This latest study, published Monday in Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that cancer patients who go bankrupt are nearly 80 percent more likely to die than patients who don’t, and some cancers had significantly higher mortality rates. Prostate cancer patients who filed for bankruptcy were almost twice as likely to die; bankrupt colorectal cancer patients were 2.5 times more likely to die as those not done in by debt.
“That blows away the benefits of many, if not most, treatments,” said Ramsey, an internist and health economist who launched HICOR in 2013 to help reduce the human and economic burden of cancer. “To me, it’s one thing if you go bankrupt. Financially, you’re really in bad shape but you come out of it with your cancer treated. But if it actually is a double hit, where your very survival is affected? That is profound.”

Chemo weakens the immune system for up to nine months

Most cancer patients know that chemotherapy weakens their immune systems, putting them at risk for viral and bacterial infections.
A month or two after chemo ends, however, most people assume their immune system has returned to normal. New research out of the U.K. now suggests otherwise, at least when it comes to early-stage breast cancer patients who’ve been treated with a certain type of chemotherapy.
In a small, observational study, conducted at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, researchers found that the effects of chemotherapy can weaken part of the immune system for up to nine months after treatment, leaving patients vulnerable to infections. The study also demonstrated that smoking exacerbates this effect.
“This study has demonstrated that the adaptive immune system is altered following chemotherapy for at least nine months post-therapy.”

Hacking the programs of Cancer Stem Cells

Liang Fang and his colleagues in Walter Birchmeier's group, working with the Screening Unit and Medicinal Chemistry Group of the FMP and the campus company EPO, have now discovered a molecule that interrupts biochemical signals essential for the survival of tumor cells called Wnt-addicted cancer stem cells. The discovery is the product of an approach known as "rational drug design," targeting specific molecules based on a thorough understanding of the biology of a disease and the biochemical signals that support it. The work appeared ahead of print in the online edition of Cancer Research. Liang Fang and his colleagues took advantage of years of research carried out by Birchmeier's lab on the biochemistry of cancer-related signaling within cells. Much of their work has been devoted to unraveling a molecular network called the Wnt signaling pathway, which plays an essential role in healthy embryonic development. In adults the system helps maintain the structure and integrity of tissues. Its activity must be carefully controlled, but in many cancers the system is switched on inappropriately. Tumor cells hijack it to promote their uncontrolled growth and survival and the migrations seen in metastases. In the current study Liang Fang and his colleagues focused on a component of the Wnt pathway called beta-catenin. "In the absence of an environmental signal, beta-catenin is locked out of the cell nucleus," Birchmeier says. "It is linked to a complex of proteins that ultimately break it down. External signals can release it from this 'destruction complex,' and it travels to the cell nucleus." "We observed a strong reduction of tumor growth," Walter Birchmeier says. "What remained of the tumors seemed to be devoid of cancer stem cells, LF3 seemed to be powerfully triggering these cells to differentiate into benign tissue. At the same time, no signaling systems other than Wnt were disturbed. All of these factors make LF3 very promising to further develop as a lead compound, aiming for therapies that target human tumors whose growth and survival depend on Wnt signaling."

Discovery reveals how immune cells protect themselves

Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered the mechanism by which immune cells called regulatory T cells keep themselves intact and functional during their demanding task of holding the immune system in check. Such T cells are key to preventing the immune system from attacking the body in autoimmune disease.
The researchers said their findings suggest that drugs influencing this protective mechanism could be used to alert the immune system to fight cancers.
Led by corresponding author Hongbo Chi, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Immunology, the research appeared on the Nature Immunology website today as an advance publication.
The researchers discovered that once regulatory T cells are activated to begin their work, they are protected by a kind of cellular "cleanup" process called autophagy. This natural destructive biological mechanism targets and degrades molecules that are no longer needed, essentially ridding the cell of molecular garbage. Until these studies, no one knew how regulatory T cells maintained themselves when activated.

Afatinib shows clinical benefit for Lung Cancer patients

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with common epidermal growth factor (EGFR) mutations and brain metastases showed improved progression-free survival (PFS) and response from the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) Afatinib compared to standard platinum doublet chemotherapy. EGFR TKIs are highly effective therapies for advanced NSCLC driven by EGFR mutations, especially the common mutations, exon 19 deletions and L858R point mutations. Even though there are a number of EGFR TKIs approved for first-line therapy of EGFR mutation positive NSCLC, there is a scarcity of prospective data for EGFR TKIs in patients with brain metastases.
The overall results from both clinical trials have been published previously and showed that afatinib demonstrated significantly improved PFS, ORR, and patient-reported outcomes compared with platinum-based chemotherapy. Also, Afatinib demonstrated, for the first time with an EGFR TKI, improved OS in patients harboring EGFR Del19 mutations, the most common EGFR aberration in NSCLC patients.

Australian Chiropractors claim ability to prevent Cesarean and Cure Cancer

Chiropractors around the country have been making claims they can prevent Cesarean births, treat diabetes, cure cancer and even fight the flu. More details have emerged about the nature of marketing material chiropractors across Australia have been publishing on their websites.
Medical professionals are worried the practice could be potentially dangerous for patients.
Dr Harvey, of Monash University, on Monday published an article in the Medical Journal of Australia calling for the Chiropractic Board of Australia to be sacked because its failure to deal with complaints and enforce advertising laws.
He said the board's "educative" approach was not working and some chiropractors continued to break laws by spruiking misleading claims.
The board and the regulator, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, maintain most clinicians change their marketing when errors are brought to their attention.
Dr Harvey made the complaints after identifying more than 200 websites where chiropractors made unsubstantiated and potentially dangerous claims.

Experts create new guidelines to improve treatments for Cancer patients

A committee of national experts, led by a Cleveland Clinic researcher, has established first-of-its-kind guidelines to promote more accurate and individualized cancer predictions, guiding more precise treatment and leading to improved patient survival rates and outcomes.
These new guidelines are changing the traditional approach of cancer staging methods for cancer treatment. The new risk calculators, which will complement the existing staging system, will enable physicians to more accurately and precisely determine the best treatment for individual patients.
The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), which is responsible for periodically evaluating and updating the cancer stages, has acknowledged that cancer stages are imperfect, and it is committed to enhancing the system with more prognostic, statistically based risk calculators in 2016.
"This represents a new paradigm shift for the future of cancer treatments,"
The formulas must predict overall survival or death from a particular type of cancer and have to pass all 16 criteria. "Our checklist should open the door to a wave of statistical prediction models that get used clinically across many different cancers," said Kattan, a pioneer in the development of cancer risk calculators called nomograms. "It could potentially be applied outside cancer as well, anywhere statistical prediction models are being considered for widespread usage."

New biomarkers for drug design and alternative treatments of Cancer

Researchers have discovered gene-targets (biomarkers) that may enable alternative treatments or the potential design of new drugs that target metastasis-promoting tumor genes.

This is the key finding in a study led by researchers from Georgia State University in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and published in journal Oncotarget.
"The aim of our study was to investigate/search for gene targets that provide meaningful information on the tendency of cancer cells to spread to secondary sites," said Imoh Okon, assistant professor of research in the Center for Molecular and Translational Medicine at Georgia State and lead author on the study. "In this study, we found that enhanced neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) and NEDD9 levels in endometrial and lung cancer positively correlated with metastasis, while liver kinase B1 (LKB1) inhibited the migration of cancer cells."
For the study, researchers obtained more than a hundred clinical endometrial cancer specimens and matching serum. Using multiplex arrays and a variety of experimental approaches, they analyzed the specimens for gene targets that positively or negatively correlated with metastatic potential of the tumors. Data were translated to reflect the patient's age at diagnosis, disease stage, grade and histology.
"Our research provides strong translational potential with respect to biomarkers that play critical roles in the development of endometrial/lung tumors," added Okon. "The ability to identify, characterize and validate gene targets that strongly associate or correlate with disease development or metastasis will facilitate early detection and appropriate treatments to tackle the disease at an early stage or before metastasis occurs."
The researchers' next steps will involve expansion of the biomarkers identified in this study to other cancer types, especially breast cancer, due to the hormonal input that is a common factor in gynecologic tumors.

New device could decrease time between detection and treatments for Cancer

Dr. Yong Joe-Kim, director of The Acoustics & Signal Processing Laboratory at Texas A&M University, and his students are conducting research that seeks to develop a method of cancer detection that identifies the mechanical properties of cancer cells.
Kim, who is an associate professor and Pioneer Natural Resources Faculty Fellow II in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, and his team is utilizing a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant.
Kim's team worked with students from the NanoBio Systems Laboratory, which is directed by Dr. Arum Han, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M, to develop an acoustic manipulation device. The device has the potential to decrease the amount of time needed to determine the effectiveness of a treatment. The acoustophoretic microfluidics device the team built allows it to utilize the pressure generated in the small device to manipulate small fluid samples such as blood drawn during an examination. The device introduces an acoustic vibration to the sample causing the unique mechanical properties of each cell to react differently.
Since mechanical properties such as compressibility, size, density and the response to sound waves are unique for each cell in the human body, the cells reactions to the device can be viewed under a microscope allowing for clearer identification of cancerous cells.
"This is different from the current cancer detection methods as we are identifying how a cancer cell is behaving based on its mechanical properties in response to a specific treatment," said Kim.

50 percent of women with advanced-stage Ovarian Cancer could be cured

Up to half of women with advanced-stage ovarian cancer might be cured, compared to the current 20 per cent survival rate, argues Dr. Steven Narod, senior scientist at Women's College Research Institute, who calls for a new standard of treatment for women with late-stage ovarian cancer.

Based on an analysis of existing evidence, published in an opinion article in the Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology journal on January 20, Dr. Narod argues that to achieve a cure, rather than simply delay progression or reoccurrence of the disease, women should be first treated with aggressive surgery to remove all clinically-detectable cancer cells, followed by targeted chemotherapy to the abdomen (intraperitoneal chemotherapy).
The possibility of a 50 per cent cure rate would be a significant improvement over the current 20 per cent survival rate resulting from more conventional treatment options offered to patients, which consist of a combination of different methods including: chemotherapy before surgery; post-operative chemotherapy delivered intravenously to the whole body (as opposed to localized into the abdomen); and surgery that leaves minimal residual disease in the abdomen, rather than removing all visible cancer cells.
Dr. Narod, who is also a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Breast Cancer, recommends that doctors should consider adopting a standard model of care for all women diagnosed with advanced-stage ovarian cancer,

Colon Cancer patients who may need more than surgery

An easily detected genetic marker could help identify aggressive colon cancer in early stages, telling doctors that these patients need chemotherapy, a new study suggests.
Colon tumors that don't produce a protein called CDX2 are more likely to return following surgical removal in patients with stage 2 colon cancer, according to the study results.
Current standard practice holds that people with stage 2 colon cancer are not given chemotherapy following surgery to remove their tumors, because the risks of chemo outweigh the benefits, said study lead author Dr. Michael Clarke. He is a professor of cancer biology with the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.
But at least 5 percent to 10 percent of stage 2 patients are CDX2-negative, and therefore could benefit if doctors added chemotherapy to their treatment, Clarke said.

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The study findings were published Jan. 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers discover new gene functions and Cancer treatment target

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have recently discovered new functions for Sperm Associated Antigen 6 (SPAG6), a gene previously thought to be only important for cilia motility. Deficiencies of the gene have been associated with male infertility, though the new findings could have implications for diagnosis and treatment for some cancers. "I identified a new complex [grouping of genes] that plays multiple roles, including spermatogenesis, hearing and immune synapse formation," said Zhibing Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the VCU School of Medicine.
In addition to increased cellular function, it appears that SPAG6 expression is associated with sensitivity to paclitaxel, a microtubule-stabilizing drug used to treat lung, breast and ovarian cancers, among others.
Previous studies have shown that SPAG6 expression in humans is increased in some malignancies. "We believe the overexpression of this gene is one of the reasons why some cancers are resistant to microtubule-targeting drugs, such as paclitaxel, "These studies strongly suggest that SPAG6 is a novel treatment target for some cancers, particularly to the cancers that are resistant to drugs like paclitaxel."

Personalized vaccines may hold promise for Ovarian Cancer treatment

In the fall, pending approval by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers at UConn expect to begin a clinical trial that sequences DNA from the tumors of 15 to 20 women with ovarian cancer, and then using that data to create personalized vaccines for the women. According to the release, if the vaccines prove to be safe, researchers will then conduct a Phase II clinical trial to analyze whether they help prolong patients’ lives.
“This has the potential to dramatically change how we treat cancer,” Srivastava said in the newsrelease. “This research will serve as the basis for the first ever genomics-driven personalized medicine clinical trial in immunotherapy of ovarian cancer.”

UK Cancer treatment for MS patients gives 'remarkable' results

About 20 patients have received bone marrow transplants using their own stem cells. Some patients who were paralysed have been able to walk again.
Prof Basil Sharrack, of Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital, said: "To have a treatment which can potentially reverse disability is really a major achievement."
The treatment - known as an autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) - aims to destroy the faulty immune system using chemotherapy.
It is then rebuilt with stem cells harvested from the patient's own blood. These cells are at such an early stage they've not developed the flaws that trigger MS.
Prof John Snowden, consultant haematologist at Royal Hallamshire Hospital, said: "The immune system is being reset or rebooted back to a time point before it caused MS."
About 20 MS patients have been treated in Sheffield in the past three years. Prof Snowden added: "It's clear we have made a big impact on patients' lives, which is gratifying."
The Royal Hallamshire Hospital - together with hospitals in the United States, Sweden and Brazil - is part of an international trial, MIST, which is assessing the long-term benefits of the stem cell transplant.

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When New Cancer Treatments fail, Italy wants its money back

When trying new cancer treatments, Italy’s state-run health service is demanding a money-back guarantee. The experiment is being monitored in the U.S. and across Europe, making a country better known for its fashion and fettuccine a leader in innovative strategies to rein in drug spending.
The Italian Medicines Agency has devised deals with pharma companies that set payment based on how well a patient responds to treatment, and in some cases where the medication fails to help, the drugmaker gives a full refund. Italy is signing more such contracts as growing numbers of medications receive regulatory approval after mid-stage trials of fewer than 100 patients rather than awaiting final-stage assessments involving thousands.
A single cancer drug can also be assigned multiple contracts that differ by tumor type, especially when the risk of failure is higher for a certain type of cancer. So a company might have to agree to a money-back guarantee if the drug treats ovarian cancer, while it may simply offer a discount in the case of breast cancer.
As a result, Italy secured about 200 million euros ($220 million) in refunded payments for ineffective treatments in 2015, Russo said, or about 1 percent of total pharmaceutical spending.
Italy has become a model for other countries and manufacturers negotiating drug prices based on how well they work. In the U.S., Express Scripts Holding Co., the largest prescription drug benefits manager, has been studying the Italian experiment and will roll out a program next year that sets varying prices for drugs used to treat multiple types of cancer. And Roche Holding AG is trying to determine whether the Italian model could work in France.

New Cancer Treatment ‘As Simple as a Flu Shot’

Recent FDA approval of initial testing on a new, individually customized cancer treatment at Baylor Hospital in Texas could bring new hope to the lives of millions struggling to fight the disease.
The new course of action replaces chemotherapy with a simple, monthly injection. The innovative program is a radical departure from traditional thinking that attempted to “cure” a patient’s cancer. Instead, doctors and researchers at Baylor’s Mary Crowley Cancer Center are focused on controlling the disease, using cells taken from the tumor growing inside a patient.
After harvesting cells from the tumor, an individualized vaccine is created. Patients receive a monthly injection of the specialized vaccine engineered to allow the body’s immune system to keep the cancer in check. Doctor Maurizio Ghisoli stated, “Change from an acute deadly disease to a chronic disease, probably we do the same for hypertension or diabetes.”
“We don’t cure, but we control the disease,” Ghisoli added.
If successful, this breakthrough could mean the end of cancer patients having to endure intense and often debilitating chemotherapy treatments.

New drug treatment for resistance in Children's Cancer

Pediatric oncologists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have reported their latest results in devising new treatments for stubbornly deadly forms of the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. Building on their previous experiences in treating some refractory subtypes of neuroblastoma with the anticancer drug crizotinib, the researchers have identified a powerful new drug with "unparalleled" strength against forms of the cancer that resist crizotinib.
"Our preclinical results provide a strong rationale for fast-tracking this drug into clinical trials in children with neuroblastoma," said study leader Yael P. Mossé, M.D., a pediatric oncologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "We expect to begin a clinical trial early this year."
In the current study, PF-06463922 was more powerful than crizotinib in both neuroblastoma tumor cell cultures and in animal models, mice with implanted neuroblastoma tumors derived directly from human patients. Mossé, Lemmon, and colleagues showed that PF-06463922 showed more profound inhibition of ALK than crizotinib, and at far lower concentrations. The tumors in the animals showed rapid, complete and sustained regression.
"The responses we saw in animals were unprecedented in models of ALK-driven neuroblastoma, and bolsters the case for clinical development of this agent for treating children with this subtype of neuroblastoma," said Mossé. "The drug had very broad potency against a range of ALK mutations, so this could become the ALK inhibitor that is prioritized for frontline therapy in patients with ALK-driven neuroblastoma."

Breast Cancer study shows new potential drug targets

The current study performed shRNA screens on 77 breast cancer cell lines, a large enough sample to represent the many sub-types of this disease. The research team then applied their newly designed statistical technique, the si/shRNA Mixed-Effect Model (siMEM), to score the results of the cell-line genetic knockdown studies, identifying candidate genes most vital to cancer growth. They also compared the results against information in large databases on cancer genetics, protein interactions and genetic changes seen in cancer cells when drugs are effective or not.
The combined methods created newfound signals in the data more closely tied to impact on cancer cell traits and did a better job screening out false positives. The study identified a number of candidate genes previously unknown to play a role in breast cancer cell survival. In addition, the team found clusters of genes that were required in cells that were either sensitive or resistant to 90 anti-cancer drugs.
Among the new and potential "druggable" targets identified for triple negative breast cancer, the most deadly form of the disease, were signaling proteins linked by past studies to brain tumors (EFNB3 and EPHA4), proteins that regulate cell growth pathways (MAP2K4, MAPK13), and a protein known to drive inflammation (interleukin 32).
The data also suggested for additional study dozens of new, potential drug combinations for the treatment of breast cancer subtypes, including RAF/MEK and CDK4 inhibitors, EGFR inhibitors and BET-inhibitors with epirubicin and vinorelbine, and PLK1 inhibitors with AKT inhibitors.
While the new method suggests pathways for further study in every breast cancer subtype, the authors chose one for additional analysis to show the potential of the work to guide the field. Further experiments validated BRD4 as a gene essential to the survival of most luminal/HER2+ cancer cells, as well as a subset of triple negative breast cancer cells.

Obama has announced plans to Cure Cancer

In a powerful State of the Union address, his final as president of the United States, Barrack Obama has announced a new American initiative to cure cancer.
Referring to vice-president Joe Biden's comments last year, when Biden announced he would not be running for president in 2016, in part due to the death of his son, Beau, from cancer, Obama introduced what could amount to be one of his most important scientific policies.
Biden has pledged to increase resources to fight cancer, both public and private, and to break down these silos "and bring all the cancer fighters together, to work together, share information, and end cancer as we know it," with the ultimate goal of doubling the current rate of progress in cancer research, making a decade worth of advances in the next five years. Biden will be bringing together researchers, physicians, government bodies and corporations, to encourage greater collaboration between what he says are disparate groups. One such collective, announced alongside Obama and Biden's initiative, is a group calling itself Moonshot 2020, consisting of a coalition of pharmaceutical companies who aim to complete clinical trials for up to 20 tumor types in as many as 20,000 patients by the year 2020.

New blood test monitors spread of Melanoma

A new blood test might improve doctors' ability to track the spread of advanced melanoma skin cancer, according to results of a small, preliminary study.
The test monitors blood levels of DNA fragments from dead cancer cells, and is more effective than the current test at tracking the severity and spread of advanced melanoma, the researchers said.
"Our study results show that circulating tumor DNA is a superior blood test for evaluating and tracking progression of metastatic melanoma," study senior investigator Dr. David Polsky, from NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, said in a center news release.
Currently, a test that measures blood levels of an enzyme called lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is done to guide management of the cancer. LDH levels rise during aggressive tumor growth. However, levels of LDH also rise due to other diseases and biological functions, the study authors pointed out.

The origins of an aggressive Childhood Cancer discovered

The origins of a type of aggressive childhood lymphoma have been found, giving hope that new drugs could be designed to prevent the disease coming back after treatment.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge studied the progression of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) in mice for the first time. ALCL is an aggressive blood cancer that typically appears as tumours in the lymph nodes, skin, lungs, liver and soft tissue and mostly affects children and young adults.
Current treatment for ALCL consists of intensive chemotherapy, which can have devastating long term side-effects including heart disease, infertility and secondary cancers. Up to 40% of children with ALCL relapse, requiring extra chemotherapy.
The origins of ALCL were traced to a gene fault in developing blood-producing stem cells found in the thymus. The scientists believe that while current drugs can kill cancer cells that spread into the rest of the body, they may not always be effective at killing these original 'cancer stem cells'. This allows them to sow the seeds for future relapse after apparently successful treatment has finished.
The research, which was funded by the blood cancer charity Bloodwise, is published online in the journal Nature Communications.

'Bipolar' Therapy: new twist in Advanced Prostate Cancer

Preliminary data suggest that a new twist on manipulating hormones in prostate cancer shows some benefit. The standard approach to treatment is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), but the new approach intersperses this with bipolar androgen therapy (BAT) with intramuscular testosterone injections.
Results from a small phase 2 study in 29 men with advanced hormone-sensitive prostate cancer show that the primary endpoint was met, with nearly 60% of men achieving a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level <4 ng/mL after undergoing two cycles of BAT.
The findings, which were presented at Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (GUCS) 2016, also suggest that BAT may have a positive impact on quality of life.
"The name 'bipolar' comes from the fact that this therapy is designed to produce fluctuations in testosterone levels, from very low lows in the androgen deprivation period to very high highs after they get intramuscular testosterone injections," said lead author Michael T. Schweizer, MD, of the University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle.
This approach, in which prostate cancer cells are alternately exposed to very high and very low levels of testosterone over 4 weeks, has previously been shown to have some clinical benefit.

New target for potential Blood Cancer treatment

Mutations present in a blood cancer known as follicular lymphoma have revealed new molecular targets for potential treatments, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) together with collaborators at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Follicular lymphoma is a common type of blood cancer and one of the most common non-Hodgkin lymphomas, with more than 2,500 people diagnosed in the UK every year.
Dr Jessica Okosun from QMUL's Barts Cancer Institute said: "One of the mutations that we have identified allows follicular lymphoma tumors to turn on growth signals regardless of whether nutrients are available, thereby evading normal restrictions on its growth.
"Remarkably, the mutations we have discovered have not been seen in other cancer types. However, drugs that directly target this nutrient-sensing mechanism are currently used to treat other types of cancer, and may benefit patients with follicular lymphoma."