Cancer News and Discussions

weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

New Vaccine Helps Decrease the Likelihood of Skin Cancer Recurrence and Death
TOPICS:CancerImmunotherapyMelanomaNew York UniversityVaccine
https://scitechdaily.com/new-vaccine-he ... and-death/
By NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine April 19, 2023
Human Cancer Cell Illustration

An experimental mRNA vaccine, mRNA-4157/V940, combined with immunotherapy pembrolizumab, decreased the likelihood of melanoma recurrence or death by 44% compared to immunotherapy alone in a phase 2b trial. The personalized vaccine, which took 6-8 weeks to develop for each patient, targeted specific abnormal proteins called neoantigens produced by cancer cells, teaching the immune system to recognize cancer cells as distinct from normal cells.

A recent clinical trial reveals that the combination of an experimental mRNA vaccine with an immunotherapy led to a 44% decrease in the risk of melanoma recurrence or death compared to the use of immunotherapy alone.

The randomized phase 2b trial, which was headed by researchers at NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, included both men and women who underwent surgery for the removal of melanoma from their lymph nodes or other organs and were at a heightened risk of the disease reappearing at distant sites from the original cancer.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Medication delivered in a gel stops brain tumors in mice. Could it offer hope for humans?
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04- ... -mice.html
by Johns Hopkins University

Medication delivered by a novel gel cured 100% of mice with an aggressive brain cancer, a striking result that offers new hope for patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, one of the deadliest and most common brain tumors in humans.

"Despite recent technological advancements, there is a dire need for new treatment strategies," said Honggang Cui, a Johns Hopkins University chemical and biomolecular engineer who led the research. "We think this hydrogel will be the future and will supplement current treatments for brain cancer."

Cui's team combined an anticancer drug and an antibody in a solution that self-assembles into a gel to fill the tiny grooves left after a brain tumor is surgically removed. The gel can reach areas that surgery might miss and current drugs struggle to reach to kill lingering cancer cells and suppress tumor growth. The results are published today (April 24) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Researchers ID novel treatment pathway for deadly pancreatic cancers

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04- ... eatic.html
by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center identified a novel cell signaling pathway that potentially could be targeted in therapy for patients with aggressive pancreatic cancers.

In laboratory studies with human pancreatic cancer cell lines and genetically engineered mouse models of pancreatic cancer, the investigators discovered that the High Mobility Group A1 (HMGA1) protein functions as a "molecular switch" that "flips on" genes required by tumor cells to grow in an uncontrolled fashion and form invasive tumors.

One of these genes activated by HMGA1 leads to the production of fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19), which is secreted by tumor cells. FGF19 not only provides signals that coax tumor cells to grow rapidly and invade surrounding tissues, but both HMGA1 and FGF19 cooperate to "build" a dense, fibrous, scar-like wall around the tumor cells, which is known as the stroma. Pancreatic tumors are among a few tumors that form a dense stroma, and the stroma is thought to create a barrier preventing therapy from reaching the tumor cells.

When the scientists silenced HMGA1 or disrupted FGF19 signals in mouse models of pancreatic cancer, tumor cells had markedly decreased growth and less stroma formation, suggesting that drugs to block FGF19 signals already available for use by patients with other diseases could be repurposed to treat pancreatic tumors that have high levels of FGF19. Studies of cancer genomes indicate that up to a quarter of human pancreatic cancers have high levels of HMGA1 and FGF19.


A description of the work was published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

New tool charts differentiation landscape of acute myeloid leukemia

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04- ... eloid.html
by Center for Genomic Regulation
Researchers have developed a new method to distinguish between cancerous and healthy stem cells and progenitor cells from samples of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a disease driven by malignant blood stem cells that have historically been difficult to identify. The findings, published today in the journal Cell Stem Cell, pave the way for the development of new techniques to predict whether patients will respond to chemotherapy.

AML is a type of cancer characterized by the rapid growth and accumulation of abnormal white blood cells. It is thought to develop when blood progenitor cells, which normally turn into all other types of blood cells, fail to mature properly and become abnormal. In this process, blood stem cells carry a special importance because they give rise to progenitor cells and are thought to be the cell type in which leukemic mutations occur.

Leukemic stem cells are thought to survive chemotherapy and cause relapse. High relapse rates are a major clinical problem in AML and a frequent cause of patient death.

Understanding how blood stem cells give rise to blood progenitor cells in the context of AML is crucial for improving our understanding of the disease, developing better diagnostic and prognostic tools, and identifying new therapeutic targets and treatments. However, this has been historically difficult because of the high degree of variability between patients and the similarity between healthy and malignant stem cells.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Scientists create potent 'degrader' of cancer-driving protein
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-scientist ... otein.html
by Institute of Cancer Research

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, have created a compound that destroys a protein involved in driving cancers, including B-cell lymphoma.

The 'molecular glue'-type degrader could ultimately, with further research, be developed into a cancer drug, and will also be a powerful tool to study cancer biology.

It's an example of an innovative approach to drug discovery known as protein degradation, that aims to target cancer by taking advantage of the cell's natural disposal system to remove proteins that can cause disease.

In a new study, the research team describes how the degrader selectively sticks to the BCL6 protein—a protein which B-cell lymphoma cells need to survive—and tags it to be destroyed.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Pilot study for T-cell lymphoma finds adding epigenetic drug to standard chemotherapy is effective
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05- ... -drug.html
by Weill Cornell Medical College
Nearly 90% of patients with an aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma had their cancer go into remission in a small phase 2 clinical trial testing a treatment aimed at making chemotherapy more effective, according to Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators.

The clinical trial, whose results were published May 4 in Blood, included 17 patients with a type of blood cancer called peripheral T-cell lymphoma with T-follicular helper phenotype (PTCL-TFH), also known as angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. Fifteen of them (88.2%) had complete responses after a several-month course of treatment, which combined a standard four-drug chemotherapy regimen known as CHOP with another drug called azaciditine. Patients with PTCL-TFH have tumors that typically bear excessive clusters of gene-silencing marks called methylations on their DNA—marks that azacitidine removes.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Giving exhausted T cells a second wind boosts cancer treatment
By Paul McClure
May 04, 2023
https://newatlas.com/medical/revive-t-c ... treatment/

Constantly fighting cancer or other diseases can exhaust our immune system’s T cells, impeding their ability to kill invaders. A new study has identified a way of reviving exhausted T cells so they’re ready to fight again, improving the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.

A type of white blood cell, T cells play an important role in protecting the body from foreign invaders such as cancer. But they can only fight for so long before they become exhausted. When this happens, T cells don’t produce as many immune-response-stimulating proteins and are less effective at killing cancer tumor cells.

Immunotherapy is the umbrella term for a range of biologically based cancer treatments that uses T cells to fight cancer by boosting the immune system’s ability to stop or slow cancer cell growth or help it recognize and destroy cancer cells. For immunotherapy to be effective requires T cells to be in peak – non-exhausted – condition.

Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys in California studied T cell exhaustion in the setting of melanoma and discovered that a protein called P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1), found on the surface of T cells, is key to T cell exhaustion.

“Slowing or reversing T cell exhaustion is a huge focus in cancer research, and many researchers are working on different ways to accomplish this,” said Jennifer Hope, lead author of the study. “This new approach could be a viable treatment on its own, but it also has tremendous potential to work synergistically with existing therapies.”

The approach is unique because it tackles the problem of T cell exhaustion from multiple angle
s.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Study identifies new treatment target for metastatic cancer
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05- ... ancer.html
by Elizabeth Chapin, University of Kentucky

A new University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center study reveals more about changes that happen to cancer cells when they metastasize and identifies a promising target for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.

Metastasis is when cancer cells spread from the primary tumor to surrounding tissues and distant organs in the body and is the primary cause for breast cancer mortality. Cancer cells' plasticity, or their ability to change and adapt, is critical for progression to metastatic cancer.

The research, published in PNAS on May 8, shows a metabolite called succinate plays a role in enhancing cancer cell plasticity and identifies an enzyme called PLOD2 as a regulator of succinate during breast cancer progression.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

AI-Powered Diagnostic Tool Predicts Pancreatic Cancer Up to 3 Years in Advance
https://www.extremetech.com/science/ai- ... 3-years-in
Given how difficult pancreatic cancer can be to diagnose, the tool could be life-saving.
By Adrianna Nine May 10, 2023
Pancreatic cancer might be relatively rare, but it’s one of the world’s leading causes of cancer-related death. Thanks to the organ’s placement deep within the abdomen, tumors on the pancreas can be difficult to detect, forcing doctors to rely on expensive and invasive imaging or blood tests instead. If these strategies are implemented too late, a patient’s odds of successfully completing treatment are slim.

A new tool powered by artificial intelligence might make early detection easier and more accessible. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Copenhagen partnered with the VA Boston Healthcare System and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to build a screening program that scans people’s medical records to determine their likelihood of developing pancreatic cancer. According to a paper published Tuesday in Nature Medicine, the tool can predict future pancreatic cancer diagnosis up to three years ahead with 88% accuracy.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise in Small Trial
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/heal ... -mrna.html

No paywall
https://archive.is/4q0NN

Five years ago, a small group of cancer scientists meeting at a restaurant in a deconsecrated church hospital in Mainz, Germany, drew up an audacious plan: They would test their novel cancer vaccine against one of the most virulent forms of the disease, a cancer notorious for roaring back even in patients whose tumors had been removed.

The vaccine might not stop those relapses, some of the scientists figured. But patients were desperate. And the speed with which the disease, pancreatic cancer, often recurred could work to the scientists’ advantage: For better or worse, they would find out soon whether the vaccine helped.

On Wednesday, the scientists will report results that defied the long odds. The vaccine provoked an immune response in half of the patients treated, and those people showed no relapse of their cancer during the course of the study, a finding that outside experts described as extremely promising.

The study, which will be published in Nature, was a landmark in the yearslong movement to make cancer vaccines tailored to the tumors of individual patients.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

Targeting uncontrolled inflammation may hold the key to treating therapy-resistant cancers
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05- ... ncers.html
by Van Andel Research Institute

Van Andel Institute scientists have pinpointed how a specific gene mutation triggers an inflammatory cascade that may drive development of treatment-resistant cancers.

The new findings, published today in Molecular Cell, reveal for the first time the molecular circuitry by which mutations in the gene STK11 cause inflammation to spiral out of control. The resulting chemical firestorm damages healthy cells and can enable cancer development. Tumors that lose the STK11 gene are tough to treat because they resist traditional chemotherapy and many of the latest immunotherapies.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12727
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: Cancer News and Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

New therapy helps immune system eradicate brain tumors

by Swedish Research Council
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05- ... umors.html

Researchers from Uppsala University have developed a method that helps immune cells exit from blood vessels into a tumor to kill cancer cells. The goal is to improve treatment of aggressive brain tumors. The study has been published in the journal Cancer Cell.

Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain tumor that lacks efficient treatment. This is in part due to the ability of the tumor to suppress or evade the body's natural anti-cancer immune response. Immunotherapy, using checkpoint inhibitors, can reactivate the immune system against cancer. However, for this type of treatment to be effective, specific immune cells known as killer T cells must be present within the tumor.

Unfortunately, blood vessels in brain cancer are dysfunctional and act as a barrier, preventing killer T cells from reaching the tumor. As a result, this form of immunotherapy, which is effective against many forms of cancer, is ineffective against brain cancers.
Post Reply