Cancer News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Researchers identify a potential new target for head and neck cancer immunotherapy
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03- ... erapy.html
by University of California - San Diego
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health have identified a strong association between the product of a gene expressed in most cancers, including the most common type of head and neck cancer, and elevated levels of white blood cells that produce antibodies within tumors.

The findings, published in the March 10, 2023 issue of PNAS Nexus, suggest a potential new target and approach for cancer immunotherapies that have thus far produced mixed results for certain head and neck cancers.

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is an antigen abundantly produced in roughly 85% of tumor cells. Antigens are toxins or other substances that provoke an immune response against that substance. This is especially true with TERT in cancer patients.

But the effects of TERT expression on regulation of adaptive immunity within tumors is not understood. In the new study, co-senior study author Maurizio Zanetti, MD, professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and head of the Laboratory of Immunology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and colleagues used RNA sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas.

"Our data emerged through targeted computational reanalysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas, a valuable public tumor sequencing dataset, guided by core principles of immunology," said co-senior author Hannah Carter, Ph.D., associate professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said.

Specifically, Zanetti, Carter and their collaborators looked at 11 solid tumor types to investigate potential interactions between TERT expression and B and T cells that have infiltrated the tumor microenvironment.

B cells are immune response cells that produce antibodies to antigens, from bacteria and viruses to toxins. T cells are immune cells that target and destroy cells in the body that have been taken over by antigens or become cancerous. But B cells also present antigens to T cells triggering their activation in the process.

The researchers found a positive correlation between TERT expression and B and T cells in four cancer types, with the strongest association in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, a condition that develops in the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose and throat.

They found that patients in which this association was found are linked to more favorable clinical outcomes. The findings, said Zanetti, suggest the de novo formation of lymphoid structures intra-tumor by B and T lymphocytes with TERT as potential connecting antigen.
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Leukaemia breakthrough: Experimental pill sees cancer vanish in 18 patients
Imane El Atillah
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/leukaemia-bre ... ccounter=2
Tue, 21 March 2023 at 7:08 am GMT-7·4-min read

Terminal leukaemia patients who were not responding to treatment now have hope for a cure, thanks to a new experimental pill called revumenib.

This drug has completely eliminated cancer in a third of the participants in a long-awaited clinical trial in the United States.

Although not all patients showed complete remission, scientists remain hopeful as the results indicate that the pill might pave the way to a cure for leukaemia in the future.

“We're incredibly hopeful by these results of patients that received this drug. This was their last chance,” said study co-author Dr Ghayas Issa, a leukaemia physician at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.

“They have progressed on multiple lines of therapy and a fraction of them, about half, had disappearance of their leukaemia cells from their bone marrow,” he told Euronews Next.
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More cancers may be treated with drugs than previously believed
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-cancers-d ... ieved.html
by Alex Gardner, University of Pennsylvania
Up to 50% of cancer-signaling proteins once believed to be immune to drug treatments due to a lack of targetable protein regions may actually be treatable, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings, published this month in Nature Communications, suggest there may be new opportunities to treat cancer with new or existing drugs.

Researchers, clinicians, and pharmacologists looking to identify new ways to treat medical conditions—from cancer to autoimmune diseases—often focus on protein pockets, areas within protein structures to which certain proteins or molecules can bind. While some pockets are easily identifiable within a protein structure, others are not. Those hidden pockets, referred to as cryptic pockets, can provide new opportunities for drugs to bind to. The more pockets scientists and clinicians have to target with drugs, the more opportunities they have to control disease.

The research team identified new pockets using a Penn-designed neural network, called PocketMiner, which is artificial intelligence that predicts where cryptic pockets are likely to form from a single protein structure and learns from itself. Using PocketMiner—which was trained on simulations run on the world's largest super computer—researchers simulated single protein structures and successfully predicted the locations of cryptic pockets in 35 cancer-related protein structures in thousands of areas of the body. These once-hidden targets, now identified, open up new approaches for potentially treating existing cancer.

What's more, while successfully predicting the cryptic pockets, the method scientists used in this study was much faster than previous simulation or machine-learning methods. The network allows researchers to nearly instantaneously decide if a protein is likely to have cryptic pockets before investing in more expensive simulations or experiments to pursue a predicted pocket further.
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Researchers discover two-pronged approach to stimulate STING antitumor activity
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03- ... tumor.html
by H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
Immunotherapies have greatly improved the outcomes of many patients with melanoma. But there is still a need for new approaches for the subset of patients who do not respond well to this type of therapy. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are looking at new targets to help inhibit tumor development and promote antitumor immunity, one being the STING signaling pathway. In a new article published in Nature Communications, a team of Moffitt and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine investigators demonstrate that targeting the STING pathway with a combination strategy results in improved antitumor activity.

The STING pathway is a key regulator of immune responses to viruses and bacteria and contributes to antitumor immunity. Inhibition of STING signaling is observed in several cancer cell lines, and expression of STING protein decreases as some cancer types progress, such as melanoma. These observations suggest that agonist drugs, or drugs that activate STING signaling within the tumor environment, may have antitumor effects.
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Using Bacteria to Target Cancer Treatment
March 28, 2023

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) When an outlet isn't designed for your plug, you need a plug adapter to get power to your devices.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have developed a similar approach to cancer treatment, using bacteria as the adapter to connect powerful radiation therapy to cancer cells. The research was recently published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

Radionuclide therapy basics

The research focuses on delivering a cancer treatment called radionuclide therapy. Nalinikanth Kotagiri, PhD, corresponding author of the research, explained that radioactive material used in the treatment releases beta rays as it decays, destroying anything in its path.

This treatment is typically delivered in a targeted way, with the cancer-killing radiation binding to the cancer cells through receptors on the cell surface to spare as many surrounding healthy cells as possible.

“Every cancer type has its own unique epitopes, or receptors, that are expressed on its surface,” said Kotagiri, a University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researcher and associate professor at UC's James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy. “With that information, you can deliver a drug or radiation, using molecules such as antibodies and peptides, only to the cancer cells where it’s supposed to go, and not anywhere else like vital organ
Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/984218

For a technical presentation as published in Advanced Health Materials: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/fu ... 202202870
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Novel lymphoma tumor model paves way for new therapies
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03- ... apies.html
by Catherine Barzler, Georgia Institute of Technology
In recent years, innovative cancer drugs that target specific molecular drivers of the disease have been embraced as the treatment of choice for many types of cancer. But despite significant advances, there is still a lack of understanding about how the complex interactions between a tumor and its surrounding environment in the body affect cancer progression. This problem has become a well-known roadblock in making novel treatments effective for more people.

Ankur Singh, professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, has led an international team of researchers in the development of a promising breakthrough for targeted cancer therapies.

The team bioengineered a synthetic tumor model to understand and then demonstrate how the tumor microenvironment impacts the effectiveness of targeted therapies for a specific type of lymphoma called Activated B Cell-like Diffuse Large B cell lymphoma (ABC-DLBCL). Their synthetic tumor model could change the game for designing and testing personalized cancer therapies. The research paper, which features an interdisciplinary team from institutions across the U.S. and around the world, was published in the journal Nature Materials.
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A cancer-wide analysis finds cancer-wide targets for tumor reduction
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03- ... ction.html
by Justin Jackson , Medical Xpress
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, have discovered a potential new target for cancer immunotherapy in transposable elements (TEs), short segments of DNA that can move around the genome.

In the paper, "Pan-cancer analysis identifies tumor-specific antigens derived from transposable elements" published in Nature Genetics, researchers used the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a database of more than 20,000 cancer samples covering 33 distinct cancer types and and 675 cancer cell lines.

The paper focuses on transposable elements (TEs) that exist in the human genome but are often dormant. These are, as the name implies, segments of DNA that can insert themselves into other genes. The classic example is a retrovirus that incorporates some of its genetic code in the genome of a host. The genome is prepared for this sort of intrusion, and continued replication and insertion is typically "turned off."

When cancers develop, they do so without much of the normal genetic failsafes in place, as they often originate from cells that have damaged DNA to begin with. In replicating, cancer allows these dormant TEs to regain their transposable ability within cancer cells and, according to the study, "drive expression of atypical transcripts that, at times, can be both highly expressed and widely shared across tumor samples."
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Global breakthrough treating childhood cancer with artificial intelligence

8:45pm Mar 31, 2023

Researchers have found a way to make digital models of tumours to help find new treatments for childhood cancers.

A team of doctors from Clayton's Hudson Institute has collected more than 300 samples of children's tumour cells to develop a digital collection of tumours, called the Childhood Cancer Model Atlas.

Each tumour is grown in a lab and then turned into an accurate model online.

Researchers then test the digital tumour with artificial intelligence, allowing them to trial hundreds of drugs and treatments on a child's tumour without having to test the child themselves.

"Because we've done this for thousands of patients we've been able to generate terabytes, tens of terabytes of data," Professor Ron Firestein said. "That allows us to use a very powerful artificial intelligence method to predict which drug will work in what specific type of children's cancer."

https://www.9news.com.au/national/globa ... 6fdaaf1e68
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caltrek
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Understanding and Fighting Metastatic Cancer
April 5, 2023

Introduction:
(Eurekalert) “There won’t be a miracle cure for cancer,” says Thomas Brabletz. “A multi-faceted approach has to be taken to fighting cancer, which means that the most successful treatment strategy is likely to involve an intelligent combination of drugs, often tailored to the individual patient’s needs, that target various weaknesses.” Thomas Brabletz, a renowned cancer researcher, hopes to pinpoint these weaknesses, and is focusing on a relentless opponent that is still almost invariably fatal, even today and in spite of the major advancements made over recent years: metastatic cancer. He is also exploring why some types of cancer develop resistance to treatment and lead to cancer recurring after initially successful treatment.

Thomas Brabletz is Chair of Experimental Medicine I (Molecular Pathogenesis Research) and the Vice Dean for research at the Faculty of Medicine. Ever since he was a student, he has been interested in the biological mechanisms triggering cancer. He chose to focus on molecular pathology and completed his postdoctoral habilitation in this subject at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in 1998. In 2007, he was appointed professor of molecular oncology at the University of Freiburg, before returning to Erlangen in 2014. Brabletz, who is also a qualified doctor, is one of the leading cancer researchers worldwide; he has published 180 peer reviewed publications and presented his research as a speaker at international conferences and symposia more than 270 times.

Migrating cancer stem cells

Brabletz was the first researcher to identify migrating cancer stem cells as the cause of metastasis and treatment resistance, roughly 20 years ago. “Until then, researchers believed that metastasis was predominantly driven by an irreversible accumulation of mutations,” he explains. Normal stem cells have a decisive role to play in embryonic development and tissue homeostasis. They allow any number of different types of tissues and organs to be formed from an original small cluster of cells. The important factor in this process is that epithelial cells are capable of converting into mesenchymal cells. These mesenchymal cells then migrate to pre-determined locations and develop there into tissue complexes.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/985134
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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New type of genetically-engineered T-cell may destroy solid cancer tumors
By Paul McClure
April 05, 2023
https://newatlas.com/medical/geneticall ... er-tumors/
Cancer cells are notorious for evading detection by the body’s immune system, making them difficult to treat. But a promising new type of genetically engineered T-cell that can effectively destroy solid cancer tumors may be just what the doctor ordered.

Killer T-cells are an important part of the immune response. They are the body’s security guards, actively patroling for things that don’t belong, such as infections and other diseases. Killer T-cells possess surface receptors that recognize and latch on to foreign invaders and abnormal cells, destroying them.

Cancer cells can evade detection by killer T-cells, making them difficult to destroy. But there is a way our body’s T-cells can be “taught” to recognize and attack cancer cells. One approach is to use chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells, genetically engineered cells with a new receptor that allows them to bind to and kill cancer cells.
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