Cancer is anything but a straightforward disease; one tumor type can be entirely different from another not only in location, but causal agent and origin. There is differentiation even within the same type of cancer. Take sarcoma, which is in fact an umbrella term for nearly 100 cancers originating in…...
Origin Cells of Glioblastoma May Have Been Identified
In what could be a major breakthrough, scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea claim to have identified the cellular origin of glioblastoma, a fast-growing type of central nervous system tumor that forms from supportive tissue of the brain and spinal cord. It…...
Metastasis Suppressor Genes
“It’s what I consider the most interesting science in the world,” says NFCR Fellow Danny Welch, Ph.D. He is alluding to his work discovering the presence of metastasis-suppressing genes in human DNA. Welch, the Hall Family Professor of Molecular Medicine, a professor of cancer biology and an associate director of…...
Simulations Could Extend Life for Kidney Cancer Patients
Surgery is one of the oldest treatments for cancer. Even as research and technology have progressed, surgery has remained an excellent choice of treatment. Kidney cancer, whose attention we are called to especially during the month of March, is often treated with a surgical process called a partial nephrectomy. A…...
Cancer Genomics Research: A Young and Exciting Field
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of science focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping and editing of genomes, which itself is a specific organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes. While DNA was first isolated in 1869, and its structure identified in 1953, genomes were not first…...
Anti-Cancer Properties Found in a Deadly Australian Arachnid
Identified as the deadliest arachnid in the world, a bite from the Australian funnel web spider can result in death in as little as fifteen minutes. However, according to recent findings, the venom of the funnel web spider may have curative properties when treating human melanoma cells. The survival of…...
Breast Cancer Linked to Bone Marrow Cells
“Our study shows that the recruitment of bone marrow-derived fibroblasts is important for promoting tumor growth, likely by enhancing blood vessel formation,” says Dr. Neta Erez of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, discussing a recent discovery finding that breast cancer can “recruit” stromal cells originally formed…...
