An international group led by scientists at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute has developed a new method for effectively extracting and analyzing cancer cells circulating in patients’ blood.
Circulating tumor cells are cancer cells that break away from tumors and travel in the blood, looking for places in the body to start growing new tumors called metastases. Capturing these rare cells would allow doctors to detect and analyze the cancer so they could tailor treatment for individual patients. (more…)
Could a common sexually transmitted infection boost a man’s risk for prostate cancer?
In a new study, Patricia Johnson, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, explored the connection between prostate cancer and the parasite that causes trichomoniasis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection in men and women. (more…)
One day Donald Simone, then a psychology major at Northeastern University, was thumbing through the job listings for work-study students.
He found several choices, including a cafeteria job and one in a neuroscience lab. He decided to try the science lab.
“It was studying eye movements and the parts of the brain that control them in different conditions, for example, darkness,” says Simone. “I went into that lab and ended up loving it. I thought doing anything with the brain was fascinating.” (more…)
UCLA-created nanoscale protein containers could aid drug, vaccine delivery
UCLA biochemists have designed specialized proteins that assemble themselves to form tiny molecular cages hundreds of times smaller than a single cell. The creation of these miniature structures may be the first step toward developing new methods of drug delivery or even designing artificial vaccines.
A large pad of fat cells that extends from the stomach and covers the intestines provides nutrients that promote the spread and growth of ovarian cancer, reports a University of Chicago-based research team in the journal Nature Medicine, published online Oct. 30.
Ovarian cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths in women, tends to spread within the abdominal cavity as opposed to distant organs. In 80 percent of women, by the time ovarian cancer is diagnosed, it has spread to the pad of fat cells, called the omentum. Often, cancer growth in the omentum exceeds the growth of the original ovarian cancer. (more…)
Researchers with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a new screening approach to identify chemical compounds that can target and kill the stem cells responsible for creating deadly brain tumors.
Glioblastoma is one of the deadliest malignancies, typically killing patients within 12 to 18 months. These brain cancers consist of two kinds of cells: a larger, heterogeneous population of tumor cells and a smaller sub-population of stem cells, which are treatment-resistant. (more…)
It is well known that the human body has a highly developed immune system to detect and destroy invading pathogens and tumor cells. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that the body has a second line of defense against cancer – healthy cells. A new study shows that normal mammary epithelial cells, as they are developing, secrete interleukin 25, a protein known for its role in the immune system’s response to inflammation, for the express purpose of killing nearby breast cancer cells.
“We found that normal breast cells provide an innate defense mechanism against cancer by producing interleukin 25 (IL25) to actively and specifically kill breast cancer cells,” says breast cancer authority Mina Bissell, of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, who led this research. “This suggests that IL25 receptor signaling may provide a new therapeutic target for the treatment of breast cancer.” (more…)