Research led by scientists at the U of T and Caprion Pharmaceuticals have uncovered the basis for a diagnostic, immunotherapy and vaccine, providing a way to detect and treat the brain-wasting damage of infectious prions like those found in mad cow disease and its human version, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Dr. Neil Cashman, a principal investigator at U of T’s Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases and professor in the Department of Medicine (neurology) and a Caprion founder,

An experimental cancer drug named bevacizumab (trade name Avastin) is the first “anti-angiogenesis” drug to prove that it can shrink tumors and extend survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, according to a national clinical trial led by researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Bevacizumab is known as an anti-angiogenesis drug because it blocks the formation of blood vessels in tumors (a process called angiogenesis) and thus inhibits their growth.

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Researchers at the Breast Care Center at Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital have developed a new test to predict which breast cancer tumors will respond to chemotherapy, potentially reducing unnecessary treatment for women with breast cancer, according to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

Using novel DNA array technology, the study identified differences in the gene patterns from tumor samples that predict which patients

Study results presented at the 39th annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) by Chandra P. Belani, M.D., professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh and co-director, Lung Cancer Program, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), demonstrate that a new therapeutic radiation strategy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) – the most common form of the disease – leads to improved survival for lung cancer patients with locally advanced disease.

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By combining genes from three separate organisms into a single bacterial factory, University of California, Berkeley, chemical engineers have developed a simpler, less expensive way to make an antimalaria “miracle” drug that is urgently needed in Third World countries.

The drug, artemisinin, is one of the most promising next-generation antimalarials because of its effectiveness against strains of the malaria parasite now resistant to front-line drugs. It is now too expensive for broad use i

Discovery may help design effective therapies for the genetic disease that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews

An interdisciplinary team of Weizmann Institute scientists has solved the three-dimensional structure of an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase. Mutations occurring in this enzyme cause Gaucher disease, a genetic illness that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews. The Institute study, published recently in EMBO Reports, may lead to the design of effective new therapies for treating the disea