cancer therapies

(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) The effective treatment of many forms of cancer continues to pose a major problem for medicine.

Many tumors fail to respond to standard forms of chemotherapy or become resistant to the medication. Scientists at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, the Hannover Medical School and Leibniz-Universität in Hanover have now discovered a chemical mechanism with which a natural substance -- argyrin -- destroys tumors.

Today, the researchers publish their findings in the renowned scientific journal Cancer Cell.

Lamellipodia and filopodia are dynamic surface extensions of the cell which play a pivotal role in cell migration, invasion and wound healing.

Biochemists have succeeded in clarifying the interplay between the two types of protrusions in regulating both the migratory and invasive abilities of cancer cells.

They hope to exploit their exciting findings for the development of more specific cancer therapies.

A new study identifies a signaling molecule that plays a major role in radiation-induced intestinal damage.

The research may lead to new strategies for protecting normal tissues from radiation during cancer therapies.

In a paradoxical discovery, scientists have found that a tumor suppressor protein known as PML appears to be the factor that enables leukemia initiating cells to maintain their quiescence -- the inert state that protects them from being destroyed by cancer therapies.

Certain biases may exist in observational studies that compare outcomes of different cancer therapies, making the results questionable.

That is the conclusion of a new study published in Cancer. Clinical trials are considered the gold standard for demonstrating the effectiveness of new treatments for cancer, but observational studies, which do not involve randomization but where available data are nonetheless analyzed to make treatment comparisons, have also been used to provide information on how well patients respond to particular drugs.

As potential cancer therapies proliferate, researchers and clinicians are striving to measure their effectiveness and to more accurately predict which patients will receive the most benefit.

At the American Association for Cancer Research 2008 Annual Meeting, April 12-16, 2008, researchers present data on a new role for MRI in brain cancer, how doctors can more effectively measure response to commonly used cancer drugs, and a unique method for predicting the risk of breast cancer spread.

Two recent studies provide a potential mechanism by which investigational anti-cancer compounds known as HDAC inhibitors specifically damage cancer cells as well as clues about possible adverse effects of these compounds -- findings with important implications for their clinical use as cancer therapies.

Cutting-edge breakthroughs in molecular targeting, translational cancer research and cancer prevention will take center stage when more than 17,000 scientists from around the world gather at the San Diego Convention Center, April 12-16, for the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Key data presented at the meeting will include late-breaking clinical trial findings related to high-profile, potentially life-saving cancer therapies in the pipeline.