Category Archives: Cancer

Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made

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Mummy Louvre
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“Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet, a study by University of Manchester scientists has strongly suggested.

The study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and and earlier periods – carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and published in Nature Reviews Cancer – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.

Excerpt from article at physorg.com.

View the paper in NatureReviews by clicking here.

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Watercress may ‘turn off’ breast cancer signal

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Watercress Beds - Headbourne Worthy

Watercress Beds - Headbourne Worthy;Image by neilalderney123 via Flickr

New scientific research from the University of Southampton has revealed that a plant compound in watercress may have the ability to suppress breast cancer cell development by ‘turning off’ a signal in the body and thereby starving the growing tumour of essential blood and oxygen.

The research, unveiled at a press conference today (14 September 2010), shows that the watercress compound is able to interfere with the function of a protein which plays a critical role in cancer development.

As tumours develop they rapidly outgrow their existing blood supply so they send out signals which make surrounding normal tissues grow new blood vessels,a process called angiogenesis, into the tumour which feed them oxygen and nutrients. Angiogenesis is the physiological process involving the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels.It is a normal and vital process in growth and development, as well as in wound healing. However, it is also a fundamental step in the transition of tumors from a dormant state to a malignant one.

The research, led by Professor Graham Packham of the University of Southampton, shows that the plant compound (called phenylethyl isothiocyanate) found in watercress can block this process, by interfering with and ‘turning off’  the function of a protein called Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF).HIF is a transcription factor that responds to decreases in  oxygen levels or hypoxia,in the cellular environment.”

“Dietary intake of isothiocyanates (ITC) has been associated with reduced cancer risk. The dietary phenethyl ITC (PEITC) has previously been shown to decrease the phosphorylation of the translation regulator 4E binding protein 1 (4E-BP1). Decreased 4E-BP1 phosphorylation has been linked to the inhibition of cancer cell survival and decreased activity of the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), a key positive regulator of angiogenesis, and may therefore contribute to potential anti-cancer effects of PEITC.”[1] The current study examined the the in vitro and in vivo effects of watercress, which is a rich source of PEITC.

Professor Packham, a molecular oncologist at the University of Southampton, comments: “The research takes an important step towards understanding the potential health benefits of this crop since it shows that eating watercress may interfere with a pathway that has already been tightly linked to cancer development.”

“Knowing the risk factors for cancer is a key goal and studies on diet are an important part of this. However, relatively little work is being performed in the UK on the links between the foods we eat and cancer development.”

Working with Barbara Parry, Senior Research Dietician at the Winchester and Andover Breast Unit, Professor Packham performed a pilot study in which a small group of healthy participants who had previously been treated for breast cancer, underwent a period of fasting before eating 80g of watercress (a cereal bowl full) and then providing a series of blood samples over the next 24 hours.

The research team was able to detect significant levels of the plant compound PEITC in the blood of the participants following the watercress meal, and most importantly, could show that the function of the protein HIF was also measurably affected in the blood cells of the women.

The researchers stated that “dietary intake of watercress may be sufficient to modulate this potential anti-cancer pathway”.However “further investigations with larger numbers of participants are required to confirm these findings”.[1]

The two studies, which have been published in the British Journal of Nutrition and Biochemical Pharmacology, provide new insight into the potential anti-cancer effects of watercress, although more work still needs to be done to determine the direct impact watercress has on decreasing cancer risk.[1,2,3]The findings build on studies that have shown people who vegetables rich in isothiocyanates, such as broccoli and cabbage, are at lower risk of developing cancer [4]

Watercress Alliance member Dr Steve Rothwell says: “We are very excited by the outcome of Professor Packham’s work, which builds on the body of research which supports the idea that watercress may have an important role to play in limiting cancer development.”

A summary of the research has been accepted for inclusion in the Breast Cancer Research Conference which is taking place in Nottingham from 15 to 17 September.

Sources:

[1] Syed Alwi SS, Cavell BE, Telang U, Morris ME, Parry BM, Packham G.(2010)In vivo modulation of 4E binding protein 1 (4E-BP1) phosphorylation by watercress: a pilot study.Br J Nutr. 2010 Jun 15:1-9. [Epub ahead of print]

[2]Inhibition of hypoxia inducible factor by phenethyl isothiocyanate (2009)Biochemical Pharmacology
Volume 78, Issue 3, 1 August 2009, Pages 261-272

[3] Press release:http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2010/sep/10_94.shtml

[4]Compounds in broccoli, cauliflower, and watercress block lung cancer progression

Further Reading:

Five reasons you should eat watercress

Dietary Chemopreventive Phytochemicals: Too Little or Too Much?

Watercress wiki

Watercress Recipes

http://www.watercress.co.uk/recipes/

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Flower Could Revolutionise Leukemia Treatment

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From the Daily Mail

Baby's Breath

“Scientists unveiled a major medical breakthrough that could revolutionise the treatment of leukaemia patients and save thousands of lives.

Experts have discovered that an extract from the white flower commonly known as Baby’s Breath can boost the efficiency of anti-cancer drugs by a staggering million times.

They found that molecules called saponins, extracted from the Gypsophila Paniculata plant, appear to break down the membrane of cancer cells.”



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US Judge Rules That Gene Patents Are Invaild

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BRCA1-Gene located on chromosome 17.

BRAC1 Gene on Chromosome 17,Image via Wikipedia

In a powerful ruling a district Judge  for the Southern District of New York in the  US has ruled that patents on genes are invalid.Approximately 20 per cent of the human genome is currently subject to a patent.The judge,Robert Sweet,has overturned the patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer on the grounds that they’re not man-made, but products of nature. A company Myriad Genetics had previously patented the BRCA1 and 2 genes which were the subject of the ruling.They were charging women more than $3000 for one test for genetic mutations and banned them from getting a second opinion.

BRAC1 and BRAC2

BRAC 1 and 2 are human tumor suppressor genes that produce proteins which combine with other tumor suppressors to repair damaged DNA and destroy the cell if the DNA is unrepairable. Some inherited mutations in these genes lead to uncontrolled cell division i.e. cancer and testing for these mutations can determine the risk of contracting ovarian or breast cancer.

Court Case

The case was taken to court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ANLU) and individual breast cancer patients who argued that the patent stifled medical research.This ruling  follows much earlier rulings in Europe by the European Patent Office in 2004 which revoked Myraid genetics European patents on the BRAC1 and 2 genes ,effectively locking them out of the European market.However those patents were revoked because the charity Cancer Research UK had filed its patent on the BRAC2 gene first and the patent on the BRAC1 was deemed not ‘inventive’.

Previous Fate of Myriad Genetics Patents in Europe

The European Patent Organisation (EPO) had originally granted 3 patents on the BRCA1 gene (EP-B-699754, EP-B-705903, EP-B-705902) to Myriad Genetics. The patents, and the option by the patent holder to strictly exert its monopoly right by requesting that all diagnostic testing be done at its laboratory in the United States,evoked strong reactions throughout Europe. Several opposition procedures had been started against these patents. After oral hearings at the EPO in Munich in May 2004, the first patent was revoked due to discrepancies of about 10 DNA letters between the BRCA1 gene sequence described in Myriad’s patent, issued in 2001, and the sequence in Myriad’s original patent application on the gene in 1994.By the time that Myriad had resubmitted the correct sequence it was found that the sequence had already been openly published elsewhere-this is known as ‘prior art‘.This deemed it automatically unpatentable as inventions have to be original/ inventive to be patented.At oral proceedings in January 2005, the other two patents were also severely limited in scope.

Current Law on Gene Patents

Patents cannot be granted on things found in nature and logically you would think that genes would fall into the

nature category since they are not man-made.However, patents can be granted on gene sequences as long as these sequences are claimed in the form of ‘isolated DNA’,that is DNA which has been purified from the body.This practice is based on the view that DNA should not be treated any differently to another chemical compound and that its isolation from the body renders it patentable as it has been transformed into a different character.Supporters of gene patents look at this as getting a patent on identifying the gene and not on the actual gene.However many scientists in the genomics and molecular biology field consider this to be a ‘lawyers trick’ as it gets around the problem of patenting DNA in the body which cannot be done since it constitutes a component of ‘nature’,but which in practical terms produces the same results as if we had patented DNA in the body

Breast cancer associated protein, BRCA1.

US Court ruling

DNA is essentially the physical form of biological information,and is distinct in its essential characteristics from other chemicals found in nature. It is concluded that DNA’s existence in an “isolated” form alters neither this fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body i.e. in nature  nor the information it encodes. Therefore, the patents at issue which were on  “isolated DNA” containing sequences found in nature are unsustainable as a matter of law and are deemed unpatentable subject matter under 35 USC 101.

Also because the claimed comparisons of DNA sequences are abstract mental processes ,they also constitute unpatentable subject matter under Section 101

Comments

Myriad Genetics is likely to appeal this ruling so the story is far from over but its a nice step forward for research in this area.

References

Europe revokes controversial gene patent-New Scientist 2004

The European opposition against the BRCA gene patents.-Paper from Fam Cancer. 2006;5(1):95-102.

US Judge rules cancer gene patent invalid-abc.net.au

Court:Essentially All Gene Patents Are Invalid-patentlyO (patent law blog)

Human Genetics Commission

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Thoughts On Results From A Study On Cancer Reporting in the Media

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An article on sciencedaily.com today on how cancer is reported by the media.It explains that cancer is often reported a bit subjectively with articles more likely to focus on aggressive treatment of cancer and survival rates.

Pink Ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraising

To read the  full article on Science Daily click here.

“Newspaper and magazine reports about cancer appear more likely to discuss aggressive treatment and survival than death, treatment failure or adverse events, and almost none mention end-of-life palliative or hospice care, according to a report in the March 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals..”

I definitely concur with the findings from the study on cancer reporting and it can seem like there is a new article explaining some new treatment being studied every day,probably because there is! The headline is usually screaming that a new/better treatment  is just around the corner and sometimes fails to mention the often long amount of  time it can take to get a drug/therapy that is still at experimental stage into clinical usage.

I can also understand the focus on the positive developments-with so many people experiencing cancer  at some point in their life (“one in two men and one in three women”)it is good to hear news stories that offer hope.

The pace of current cancer research is also phenomenal and there are new/ improved therapies or new uses of old drugs frequently being announced so there is a lot of positive news to report anyway!However,it is time that we looked at incorporating the sometimes grim reality into articles and offer more knowledge on end of life care etc even if it is only in the form of pointing people towards that knowledge.

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Golden Bullet for Cancer?

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Gold

Gold;Image via Wikipedia

A good article on a form of nanoparticle called nanocages,which I hadn’t even heard of until I read this article on Science Daily!This technology looks promising as it achieved good results despite the fact that it had not been optimized.However it still has a way to go in terms of achieving more precise targeting to tumor cells.

“ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2010) — In a lecture he delivered in 1906, the German physician Paul Ehrlich coined the term Zuberkugel, or “magic bullet,” as shorthand for a highly targeted medical treatment.Magic bullets, also called silver bullets, because of the folkloric belief that only silver bullets can kill supernatural creatures, remain the goal of drug development efforts today.A team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis is currently working on a magic bullet for cancer, a disease whose treatments are notoriously indiscriminate and nonspecific. But their bullets are gold rather than silver. Literally.….”

“We saw significant changes in tumor metabolism and histology,” says Welch, “which is remarkable given that the work was exploratory, the laser ‘dose’ had not been maximized, and the tumors were ‘passively’ rather than ‘actively’ targeted.”“

Read the rest of the article on Science Daily by clicking here.

More Information on Nanocages:

Video on gold nanoparticles:

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Reveiw on Targeting of Drugs and Nanoparticles to Tumors

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Nice review in the Journal of Cell Biology on the targeting of drugs and nanoparticles to tumors.

Excerpt:

“The concept of targeted drug delivery is attractive because it recapitulates some of the advantages of topical application of drugs: high local concentration and low systemic exposure. In practice, this approach has met with some success but has not provided the hoped-for “silver bullets.” However, recent developments in the field have rekindled interest in the targeting approach. We call this mode of drug delivery “synaphic” targeting; it is also referred to as pathotropic or active targeting. Cancer stands out as a disease most likely to benefit from targeted drug delivery….”

To read the rest of the review click here.

More Information:

Video introducing  nanotechnology:

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Personalised Approach To Tackling Breast Cancer Studied

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Invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. H&E s...

Invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. H&E stain Image via Wikipedia

Introduction

Improving quality of life and potentially keeping the cancer under control for a longer period of time are goals of a new clinical trial at the cancer center’s TGen Clinical Research Services, a partnership of Scottsdale Healthcare and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

“Many are living with refractory (cancer that has not responded to treatmnent), or advanced, breast cancer that has not responded or continues to grow despite standard treatments,” explains Nurse Practitioner Gayle Jameson, principal investigator.

The pilot study is supported by the Side-Out Foundation, a group founded by volleyball enthusiasts to help wage war on breast cancer.Women or men with advanced breast cancer that has progressed through three prior treatments are eligible for the trial, available in the western U.S. only.The new study, managed by TGen Drug Development (TD2), is open to a total of 25 patients at only two sites, the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and Fairfax Northern Virginia Hematology Oncology.

Approach

Biopsied tissue will be analyzed for unique characteristics and abnormal genes in cancer cells, which are then targeted for treatment with FDA-approved anticancer medications. “We may discover that a tumor has a gene mutation that responds to a drug not typically used in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach,” explains Jameson.

“What we are doing here is precisely matching a treatment to a specific type of cancer cell mutation and abnormal protein signaling pathways that may activate cancer cell growth. The patient would then be treated with one or more medications based on the information provided by the analyses.”

Researchers call the Side-Out study the “next generation of breast cancer treatment,” expanding on what was learned about molecular profiling in an earlier clinical trial at the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center.

Results of the earlier trial, known as the Bisgrove Study, showed that molecular profiling can identify specific treatments that help keep cancer in check for significantly longer periods, and in some cases even shrinking tumors. Clinical trials at the cancer center are administered by the Scottsdale Healthcare Research Institute.

Disscussion

This is a great step forword in the whole area of personalised medicine which identifies charactertistiscs of disease that are specific to different people.These characteritics can then be targeted more accuratly using the correct medication.Although this is approach is used to some degree in many treatments e.g. identifying hormone receptive breat cancers from those that are not ,this takes that approach to a whole new level.

About TGen

The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization focused on developing earlier diagnostics and smarter treatments.

Translational genomics research is a relatively new field employing innovative advances arising from the Human Genome Project and applying them to the development of diagnostics, prognostics and therapies for cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes and other complex diseases.

References:

http://www.tgen.org/index.cfm

Retrieved March 14, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/03/100311151722.htm

Other Interesting Articles:

A look at the treatment benefits of differentiating between characteristics of recurrent breat cancer from those of the original cancer :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318211238.htm

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The Danger of Assumptions

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Esophageal cancer affecting the lower esophage...
Image via Wikipedia

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.  ~Hugh Walpole

Everyone knows as a scientist your expected to be constantly busy asking questions and challenging assumptions.However this is to some degree unfeasible,you cant distrust everything or it will take a very long time to get any work done.

However,some researchers got a shock recently when it was announced that three frequently used human esophageal adenocarcinoma cell lines used for cancer research were in fact anything but, according to a brief communication published online January 14 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Two of the cell lines have been used in 11 U.S. patents and were part of more than 100 published studies.

The 13 established esophageal adenocarcinoma cell lines (or 14 if another suspect one is in fact authentic) are important because of the limited availability of patient samples and the fact that there are no animal models of the disease. New drugs can be tested on these cells to see if they have an effect before they are tested on real patients and important biochemical pathways can also be elucidated.

Read the rest of this article on scientificblogging.com.

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