Study suggests aspirin may help some patients survive head and neck cancer
Regular use of aspirin or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may help some patients with head and neck cancer survive the disease, according to a study led by Professor Jennifer Grandis at the University of California, San Francisco. The study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, indicates that NSAIDs are effective in patients with mutations in a gene called PIK3CA, and the researchers suggest this is because NSAIDs lower the levels of an inflammatory molecule called prostaglandin E2.
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Smart microrobots that can adapt to their surroundings
One day we may be able to ingest tiny robots that deliver drugs directly to diseased tissue, thanks to research being carried out at EPFL and ETH Zurich. The group of scientists - led by Selman Sakar at EPFL and Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich - drew inspiration from bacteria to design smart, biocompatible microrobots that are highly flexible.
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Danish malaria vaccine passes test in humans
For many years, a team of researchers at the University of Copenhagen have been focussing on developing a vaccine that can protect against the disease pregnancy malaria from which 220,000 people die every year. Now they have come a significant step closer to being able to introduce such a vaccine in the market. In a new study published in the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases the vaccine has been subjected to so-called phase one clinical trial, and the results are uplifting:
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Researchers uncover new mechanism of gene regulation involved in tumor progression
Genes contain all the information needed for the functioning of cells, tissues, and organs in our body. Gene expression, meaning when and how are the genes being read and executed, is thoroughly regulated like an assembly line with several things happening one after another.
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Sutimlimab shows promise for hard-to-treat, rare blood disorder
In a first-in-human clinical trial reported today in Blood, the investigational drug sutimlimab appeared to be effective in treating cold agglutinin disease, a rare chronic blood disorder for which there are currently no approved treatments. Cold agglutinin disease is caused by a malfunction in the immune system that causes antibodies - components of the immune system that are produced in the blood and help the body fight off disease - to mistakenly latch onto and kill red blood cells.
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Tumors backfire on chemotherapy
Some patients with breast cancer receive chemotherapy before the tumor is removed with surgery. This approach, called 'neoadjuvant' therapy, helps to reduce the size of the tumor to facilitate breast-conserving surgery, and can even eradicate the tumor, leaving few or no cancerous cells for the surgeon to remove. In those cases, the patients are very likely to remain cancer-free for life after surgery.
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Helping the anti-parasitic medicine go down
Scientists have developed a new way to deliver anti-parasitic medicines more efficiently. An international team, led by Professor Francisco Goycoolea from the University of Leeds and Dr Claudio Salomon from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, and in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Münster, Germany, have developed a novel pharmaceutical formulation to administer triclabendazole - an anti-parasitic drug used to treat a type of flatworm infection - in billions of tiny capsules.
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