Cancer Research Journal » Technology

Northwestern Nanodiamonds Kill the Cancer Left Behind

Lisa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:30:53 +0000

Scientists at Northwestern University have developed an innovative device that delivers drugs to cancer cells left inside the body after a tumor is surgically removed.

The flexible microfilm device is constructed from an FDA-approved material called polymer parylene which can be constructed in any shape and looks like a piece of plastic wrap. The patch-like film is embedded with millions of tiny nanodiamonds loaded with chemotherapy drugs then placed where residual disease cells are present.

Once in place, the semi-porous nanodiamond device is specifically designed to slowly and consistently release chemotherapy over weeks or months rather than administering it in larger single doses as often done in conventional treatment regimens.

The scientists say nanodiamonds are economical to construct and have already been successfully mass-produced for use in other automobile and electronics applications. Plus, nanodiamonds have a versatile architecture which can store a variety of treatments including small molecule, protein, antibody and RNA or DNA-based therapies.

Northwestern’s research team used Doxorubicin, a drug used to treat many forms of cancer, to test their device’s drug delivery capabilities over a one-month period. The test results indicated nanodiamonds effectively delivered the chemotherapy throughout the one-month period and indications are the device is capable of continuing treatments over substantially longer periods of time.

Northwestern’s research team was led by Dean Ho, a member of the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center and an assistant professor at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr Ho’s team included scientists from Northwestern University and Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan.

Ho is currently involved with pre-clinical trials of the device. His team is optimistic nanodiamond-embedded parylene devices will improve treatments for future cancer patients by reducing the possible complications and toxic side effects associated with chemotherapy. As Dr Ho said,

“Several surgeons at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, as well as other medical school and hospitals, are very interested in the device because it is biocompatible and provides such stable and consistent drug release.”

Dean Ho, PhD
Asst Professor, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Northwestern University

If you’d like to learn more, the team’s research has been published in the October 2, 2008, edition of the journal ACS Nano.

Source: Northwestern University NewsCenter

Related Links: EurekAlert!; ScienceDaily

Tags: adjuvant therapy; biotechnology; minimally invasive; oncology; nanomedicine; nanotechnology; targeted therapy; personalized medicine; pharmaceutical and medical devices

Waukesha Memorial Hospital Webcasts Brain Cancer Panel

Lisa — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:45:03 +0000

Are you interested in learning more about brain cancer treatments?

On Wednesday, October 8, 2008, ORlive will webcast a panel of physicians discussing the case of a brain tumor patient treated with CyberKnife® technology.

ProHealth Care is presenting the panel discussion from Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin. Radiation oncologist Nagrenda (Bobby) Koneru, MD, neuro-oncologist Hendrikus Krouwer, MD, PhD, and neurosurgeon Kenneth Reichert, MD, will participate in the roundtable discussion.

The meeting will be moderated by Michael McCrea, PhD, of ProHealth Care’s Neuroscience Center.

The public is invited to watch the live webcast free of charge beginning at 12:00 PM CDT. If you miss the live broadcast, you can view it later by accessing the ORlive archives.

If you’re a patient in the United States who’d like to learn more about brain cancer, there’s additional information available on the American Cancer Society web site.

NOTE: CyberKnife® is a registered trademark of Accuray Incorporated (NASDAQ:ARAY).

Source: OR-Live.com

Berkeley Microarray Makes Cancer Diagnosis Less Costly

Lisa — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:30:36 +0000

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have invented an innovative microarray technique that has the potential to make cancer detection faster and less expensive.

Berkeley’s technique uses a process called electrostatic repulsion to analyze DNA and RNA assays used to build personalized genetic profiles and to detect cancer, as well as other diseases. In electrostatic repulsion, thousands of electrically-charged microscopic glass beads are dispersed in fluid across the surface of a sample and then the motion of the spheres is measured to reveal specifics about the genes, mutations and pathogens present.

Berkeley Lab reports the technique can be used to analyze millions of DNA sequences at a time and results can be recorded with simple hand-held imaging devices like a cell phone camera. Because this electrostatic method doesn’t require the time-consuming fluorescent labeling or high-power instrumentation used in other microarray techniques, it could provide a cost-effective way for smaller US laboratories, rural health facilities, or clinics in developing countries to conduct cancer screening, genetic profiling, and research. As the leader of the Berkeley project said,

“One of the most amazing things about our electrostatic detection method is that it requires nothing more than the naked eye to read out results that currently require chemical labeling and confocal laser scanners. We believe this technique could revolutionize the use of DNA microarrays for both research and diagnostics.”

Jay T. Groves
Chemist, Physical Biosciences Division
US Dept of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The researchers credit physics experiments conducted by Robert Millikan almost 100 years ago with inspiring their discovery.

If you’d like to learn more about this research, the team’s findings have been published in the June 29, 2008, online edition of Nature Biotechnology.

Source: Berkeley Lab News Center

Neighborhood Correlation IDs Ancestry of Cancer Proteins

Lisa — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:58:18 +0000

Computational biologists at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a new tool for understanding the genetic history of multi-domain proteins, a class of proteins that play an important role in cancer development.

Researchers use the ancestry of proteins to predict how genes will function, to map chromosomal regions and to analyze how genes turn on and off. This information is critical to cancer research because proteins impact cell communication and binding so errors in their functioning can cause tumors.

While other computational biologists have already developed methods to identify genes sharing common ancestors, multi-domain proteins continue to present challenges. That’s because these proteins undergo a complex evolutionary process known as domain shuffling which makes their true lineage difficult to determine.

To improve scientists’ understanding of multi-domain proteins, Carnegie Mellon’s team developed a new computational method called Neighborhood Correlation. Neighborhood Correlation uses a statistically-weighted sequence similarity network to identify the ancestral relationships of protein families with greater accuracy.

CMU’s team tested Neighborhood Correlation on 20 protein families whose ancestry was already well established including kinases, the largest multi-domain protein family in the human body. The team was pleased to find the approach worked significantly better than other computational tools in use today. As one member of the CMU team said,

“We needed a completely new approach to determine which multi-domain proteins share a common ancestor and we are the first group to propose such a method. Ours is the first approach to define and analyze common ancestry in a traditional vertical way, even when domain shuffling occurs.”

Dannie Durand
Computational Biologist, CMU

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

If you’d like to learn more about Neighborhood Correlation, the findings have been published in the May 16, 2008, online edition of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Computational Biology, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the International Society for Computational Biology.

Source: Carnegie Mellon University Press

European Partnership Pursues Pocket-Sized Lasers

Lisa — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:38:38 +0000

Public and private organizations across Europe are joining forces to develop the next generation of biomedical lasers. The team’s goal is to expand laser use in the fields of medicine and research by making high-performance lasers smaller and less expensive.

The University of Dundee will lead the four-year project which is being funded by a 10.1M EUR grant from the European Commission. Other partners include the University of Sheffield, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, M-Squared Lasers Ltd, Alcatel Thales, and Phillips. The group expects to devote nearly 100 man years of research to improve the efficiency of lasers used in cancer treatment, imaging, and research, as well as other applications. As one Dundee professor said,

“This project will revolutionise the use of lasers in the biomedical field, providing both practitioners and researchers with pocket sized ultra high performance lasers at a substantially lower cost which will make their widespread use affordable.”

Dr Edik Rafailov
Division of Electronic Engineering and Physics, University of Dundee (UK)

If you’re a patient in the US who’d like to learn more about how laser technology is used to treat cancer, you can read Lasers in Cancer Treatment from the American Cancer Society.

Source: University of Dundee

Korea Unveils Clones of Cancer-Detecting Dog

Lisa — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:43:59 +0000

A collaborative project between Seoul National University and the Korean biotechnology firm RNL BIO Co Ltd (Public, SEO: 003190) has produced four identical puppies cloned from a Labrador Retriever with the ability to detect cancer by its smell.

Cancer-sniffing dogs are trained to sit in front of people or biological samples that carry the scent of specific chemicals present in cancer cells. Previous research has shown these dogs can detect the presence of bladder, breast, prostate and lung cancers simply by smelling a patient or their urine.

RNL Bio cloned Marine, a black Labrador Retriever trained by the St Sugar Cancer Sniffing Dog Training Center in Shirahama, Japan, from skin samples sent to Seoul National University last December. Yuji Satoh, the head trainer at St Sugar’s, made the decision to give Marine’s DNA to the university after a womb disease made it impossible for the dog to give birth.

The three-week-old puppies have been given the names Marine-L, Marine-N, Marine-R and Marine-S. Once the puppies have been trained, one will be donated to St Sugar’s and another to Seoul National University. The company plans to sell the two remaining puppies for $500,000.

RNL Bio used patent-pending technology to enhance the embryo implantation process so multiple births would be possible. As one of the company’s executives said,

“Cloning dogs is nothing new anymore. But we are the world’s first to have cloned four at a time from one surrogate mother. This makes it cost effective, and now we mean real business.”

Jeong Chan, Ra
CEO, RNL BIO Co Ltd

If you’re a cancer patient in the US who’d like to learn more about cancer detection, click here to visit the American Cancer Society Early Detection Guidelines web page.

Source: ABC News

MIT: Striped Nanoparticles Can Deliver Drugs Inside Cells

Lisa — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:23:50 +0000

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created the first synthetic molecules that can penetrate a cell without killing it. This discovery could change how cancer drugs are delivered to tumors.

In recent years, scientists around the world have been exploring ways to use nanoscale devices to deliver potent oncology drugs and other medicines to specific cells inside the body. Tremendous advances have been made in the field of nanoengineering, but a big problem has plagued tiny drug delivery devices. When cells recognize a foreign object, they wrap themselves around the object and encase it in a small bubble to be excreted later. This biological phenomenon keeps the drug cargo carried inside the devices from reaching the sections of the cell where it would have the most effect.

MIT’s team found that gold nanoparticles coated with alternating bands of two different types of molecules could quickly pass through the protective membranes of cells without harming them while similar nanoparticles coated randomly with the same materials couldn’t. According to MIT, the stripes were the key.

MIT’s innovation could impact more that just drug delivery — it may also help scientists learn more about how peptides and other biological materials enter living cells.

The co-leaders of the project were Francesco Stellacci, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Darrell Irvine, the Eugene Bell Career Development Associate Professor of Tissue Engineering.

If you’d like to learn more about MIT’s striped nanoparticles, their research is published, in the May 25, 2008, advance online edition of Nature Materials.

Source: MIT News

Related Audio: Nanoparticles of a Different Stripe from Technology Review by MIT

Technorati Tags: chemotherapy; cytosol; nanomedicine; nanoscience; targeted therapies

Siteman Cancer Center Offers Free Podcasts on iTunes

Lisa — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:05:08 +0000

Would you rather listen to cancer news than read about it? The Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center can help you out.

The Siteman Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center located at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine, produces an informative audio podcast series called Cancer Connection which you can get free on iTunes.

Siteman offers Cancer Connection at no cost to inform the public about breakthroughs in cancer research, prevention and treatment.

Cancer Connection’s format lets you hear updates on a variety of cancer-related topics when it’s convenient for you. You can choose to listen to individual episodes on your computer, download the archives on your hard drive to reference later, or transfer them to an iPod / MP3 player to hear while you’re on the go. When I last checked, there were 26 episodes posted in the archives.

Each episode runs about 10 minutes and new ones are being added to iTunes a couple times a month. Recent segments have featured experts on hereditary cancer, pancreatic cancer surgery, and radiation oncology.

If you’d like to find other interesting cancer broadcasts, check out Yale Cancer Center Answers and Mayo Clinic Podcasts.

Source: Siteman Cancer Center News and Events

a/LCI Lets Scientists See Real-Time Changes in Nucleus

Lisa — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:21:00 +0000

Researchers from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have developed a new technology which enables scientists to watch changes in a cell’s nucleus in real time.

This new light scattering technology is called angle-resolved low coherence interferometry, or a/LCI for short. With a/LCI, light is shone into a cell and sensors capture and analyze the light as it is reflected back. Scientists using a/LCI can see changes in the shape of the nucleus as they occur without going through the painstaking process of staining individual cells at different stages.

While it typically takes about one day to process 100 cells using the conventional cell-by-cell process, a/LCI allows hundreds of cells to be screened in as little as five minutes – making a/LCI a potential timesaver for cancer researchers. As one Duke engineer said about the technology,

“We have already shown that it could act as an early cancer detection system by detecting pre-cancerous cells in linings of tissues. These findings will permit researchers to pursue more and different investigations at the cellular level.”

Adam Wax
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University Pratt School of Engineering

Kevin Chalut, a post-doctoral fellow at Pratt and the project’s lead author, tested the new technique on pig cartilage cells and mouse macrophages. The method allowed Chalut to analyze changes in the shape of the nucleus caused by salinity in the cell environment.

The research was supported by National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.

If you’d like to learn more, the team’s findings have been published in the May 29, 2008, edition of Biophysical Journal.

Source: Duke University Pratt School of Engineering News

Laser Saves Voice Quality of Vocal Cord Cancer Patients

Lisa — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:37:13 +0000

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are using precision lasers to effectively treat early vocal cord cancers without reducing the patient’s voice quality.

The pulsed Potassium-Titanyl-Phosphate laser being used at MGH is an angiolytic laser that uses wavelengths of laser light to specifically target diseased cells without damaging healthy vocal cord tissue.

A team led by Dr Steven Zeitels of the MGH Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation began applying pulsed lasers to early vocal cord cancers more than five years ago. Similar technology was originally applied to the removal of port-wine stains by dermatologist R. Rox Anderson, MD, the director of the MGH Wellman Center of Photomedicine, who collaborated closely with Dr Zeitels.

The first 22 patients who’ve received MGH’s pulsed laser treatments for vocal cord cancer are cancer-free up to 5 years after treatment without surgical removal of vocal cord tissue or loss of voice quality, although some have required multiple laser treatments. Dr Zeitels estimates that 90 percent of early vocal cord cancer patients would be candidates for pulsed laser treatment. As he said about the technology,

“It has greatly enhanced the precision by which we can perform many procedures for chronic laryngeal diseases, both in the operating room, accompanied by the surgical microscope, and in the office.”

Steven M. Zeitels, MD, FACS
Director, Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, MGH

Dr Zeitels gained previous notoriety while treating vocal conditions in singers Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith and Julie Andrews of the film The Sound of Music.

MGH reported results from their research at the annual meeting of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association and their findings are scheduled for publication in a supplemental edition of the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology.

Source: EurekAlert.org

Related Links: HealthDay News; The New York Times

Technorati Tags: laryngeal cancer; head and neck cancer; throat cancer; pulsed-KTP; cordectomy