NewScITech

Combing the genomes of the rat and the human, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found swaths of genetic code that can be used to assess the risk of human breast cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

Giving up smoking can reduce the risk of dying from lung cancer by up to 70%, new research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology this week shows. Read the rest of this entry »

With spring on the way, Harvard researchers advise men to get more sun, supplements, and seafood. All are good sources of vitamin D, and a large, lengthy study suggests the vitamin reduces risk of prostate cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all lung cancer is due to a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. Sometimes the diagnosis is a mystery, and the stigma surrounding the disease makes it hard for patients to talk about. Now, researchers at the School of Medicine and the Northern California Cancer Center have taken the first steps toward analyzing why people who never smoked get lung cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

A clinical trial has for the first time proven that an antibody called J591 specifically targets an antigen found in high amounts on both prostate tumors and on blood vessels of all solid tumors, according to a study by medical researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. Read the rest of this entry »

Changing the way women are treated for breast cancer could improve their overall chance of survival, according to research published today in the Lancet. The new paper shows that switching to a drug called exemestane, two to three years after commencing standard therapy with the drug tamoxifen, can cut the risk of death for certain women by a further 17% compared with using tamoxifen alone. Read the rest of this entry »

MIT researchers have identified a critical defense mechanism that tumor cells employ to survive the toxic effects of chemotherapy–knowledge that could very soon lead to more effective cancer treatments. Read the rest of this entry »

An analysis of nearly two dozen studies confirms the association between passive smoke in the workplace and an increased risk of lung cancer, according to a report in the American Journal of Public Health. Read the rest of this entry »

Breast cancer patients who pray in online support groups can obtain mental health benefits, according to a new study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research that was funded by the National Cancer Institute. Read the rest of this entry »

A new method for targeting malignant brain tumors through inducing the cancerous cells to “commit suicide” has been developed by a team of researchers headed by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor of biochemistry. Read the rest of this entry »

Being overweight or obese from adolescence to menopause reduces a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer, researchers at Harvard Medical School have found. The earlier in life that the researchers looked, the stronger the association, leading to the conclusion that a woman’s weight at age 18 is a strong predictor of breast cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

By discovering a mutant mouse that is highly susceptible to mammary tumors, Cornell researchers have found a novel potential link between genetic defects in DNA replication (copying) and breast cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

New research reveals why COX-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx can cause heart attacks and strokes. Researchers believe that their findings, published in the December issue of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) journal, could enable the development of improved therapies which do not have these side-effects. Read the rest of this entry »

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that eating more red meat may be associated with a higher risk for hormone receptor–positive breast cancers in premenopausal women. This research is published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

Anticancer drugs are often highly toxic when delivered straight, but “wrapping” them inside larger molecules can lessen the side effects as well as make them more effective, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco (UCSF). Read the rest of this entry »