Doctors Find Gene Prevalent In Spread Of Breast Cancer

Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering have identified a common cancer gene that may be one of the reasons breast cancer cells are able to survive and spread to bones. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report..

Gene linked to increasingly common type of blood cancer

UC Berlekey-TGen scientists discovery published in Nature Genetics
PHOENIX, Ariz. – July 20, 2009 – California and Arizona researchers have identified a gene variant that carries nearly twice the risk of developing an increasingly common type of blood cancer, according to a study published online today by the science journal Nature Genetics.
Investigators at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) found that mutations in a gene called C6orf15, or STG, are associated with the risk of developing follicular lymphoma. This is a cancer of the body's disease-fighting network whose rates have nearly doubled in the past three decades.
In the first genome-wide association study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, scientists at UC Berkeley and TGen identified a SNP – a single nucleotide polymorphism – that could determine susceptibility to follicular lymphoma. The SNP, a DNA variant within the more than 3-billion base pairs in the human genome, was identified as rs6457327.
The study was led by Dr. Christine Skibola, Associate Adjunct Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, and by Dr. Kevin M. Brown, an Associate Investigator in the Integrated Cancer Genomics Division of TGen, a Phoenix-based, non-profit biomedical research institute.
"What's exciting about this study is that we found a target in the genome influencing the susceptibility to follicular lymphoma, which helps us discern between three major types of lymphomas," said Skibola, the paper's co-lead author. "That had not been done before on a genome-wide scale. It is our hope that this research may some day be useful in helping develop prevention, early detection and treatment of this disease."
Follicular lymphoma accounts for as much as 30 percent of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system involving the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. In NHL, tumors develop in lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. Follicular lymphoma arises from B-cells, a specific type of white blood cell. NHL is the fifth most common type of cancer in the U.S., and is newly diagnosed in about 66,000 Americans each year, and annually kills nearly 20,000, according to the National Cancer Institute.......

Scientists discover key event in prostate cancer progression

A study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reveals how late-stage, hormone-independent prostate tumors gain the ability to grow without need of hormones....

Let's Talk About Rectal Cancer, Shall We?

This Week's Question: I've noticed that today people talk openly about rectal cancer. This isn't something you used to discuss in polite company. Why is this?

There is a new attitude that protecting your life is more important than protecting your sensibilities. I think the new openness is helping to reduce cancer deaths.
This reminds me of my friend, Pete, who has a "colonoscopy rule." He insists that, if a bunch of us geezers are talking about aches, maladies and visits to the doctors, everyone has to change the subject as soon as someone uses the word "colonoscopy." Usually we switch to grandchildren, which is a lot more fun.
Colorectal cancer — cancer of the colon or rectum — is the second leading cause of death from cancer in the United States. Early detection of colon cancer is especially important because, if it is found in its early stages, it can be cured nine out of ten times........

Nanotech gene therapy kills ovarian cancer in mice


Tiny synthetic particles carrying a payload of toxin worked as well as chemotherapy at killing ovarian cancer cells in mice, without the bad side effects, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They said the treatment, which relies on the use of nanotechnology to deliver genetic material into cells, could be ready for human clinical trials in as little as a year.
"What we did was deliver DNA that basically tells cells to die. But it is only turned on in ovarian cells," said Dan Anderson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who worked on the study published in the journal Cancer Research..