Life Sciences and Chemistry

Researchers seeking to direct cancer-killing immune cells against the deadliest brain tumors have three new targets that show promise in laboratory studies and in a Phase I patient trial, according to two articles in the July 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

The antigens, previously associated with several other types of cancer cells, were recently found to be expressed in the most common and aggressive type of malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Scientists at Ce

A drug derived from an ocean-growing sponge teams up to enhance the performance of the yew tree derivative Taxol® (paclitaxel) in preventing the growth of cancer cells, according to research published in the July 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Indeed, discodermolide, a novel drug isolated from the marine sponge Discodermia dissoluta, works with paclitaxel to thwart tumor cell growth–with several times the efficacy that either drug alone exerts on proliferating cancer cells.

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Mayo Clinic researchers have manipulated a human antibody to induce an anti-tumor response in living mice that consistently curbs — and often cures — malignant melanoma, one of the most lethal forms of skin cancer and the most common cancer of young adults.
In the July 15 edition of Cancer Research Mayo researchers report three innovative discoveries that advance the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy. Cancer immunotherapy refers to scientist-controlled manipulations of the immune system

A new genetic model for a motor disorder that confines an estimated 10,000 people in the United States to walkers and wheelchairs indicates that instability in the microscopic scaffolding within a key set of nerve cells is the cause of this devastating disability. The study, which is published in the July 13 issue of the journal Current Biology, provides a provocative new insight into the molecular basis of the disease called hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and suggests a new way to treat the in

The lamprey, a jawless vertebrate, “has a radically different immune system than humans and other jawed vertebrates, but it may offer the same protection in recognizing invaders and alerting damage-control elements,” according to UAB’s Howard Hughes Investigator Max Cooper, M.D. A study by Cooper, Zeev Pancer, Ph.D., and colleagues was published in the July 9 issue of Nature.

Cooper, a developmental immunologist, is known for his work that helped delineate T and B cells in birds and mammal

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered a new mechanism that allows cells to fight a class of toxins made by a wide variety of disease-causing bacteria.

Their discovery, detailed in this week’s early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could eventually pave the way for the development of new, more effective treatments for bacterial diseases that kill or sicken millions of people each year, such as pneumonia, strep throat, scar