Stochasticity is everywhere – and finding the order in disorder can unlock new ways to understand biology.
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An epigenetic model of cancer that incorporates the concept of stochasticity could also explain why cancer risk increases with age and how biological development can be reversible.
Around 20% of women with lung cancer have never smoked.
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While lung cancer rates have decreased by 43% in men, they have risen by 79% in women. New screening guidelines and recognizing early symptoms can help address the changing face of lung cancer.
You can change your gut microbiome composition by eating different foods.
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Cancer cells are ‘cheaters’ that do not cooperate with the rest of the body. Certain microbes in your diet can either protect against or promote tumor formation by influencing cell cooperation.
Moderna is testing an mRNA vaccine in combination with pembrolizumab to treat melanoma.
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Preventive and therapeutic vaccines both train the immune system to fight disease, but they are used in different ways.
Hypoxia, or a state of low oxygen, can encourage tumors to spread. This microscopy image visualizes the microenvironment of a breast tumor.
Steve Seung-Young Lee, Univ. of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health via Flickr
Chengsheng Wu, University of California, San Diego; David Cheresh, University of California, San Diego, and Sara Weis, University of California, San Diego
Some cancers are notoriously resistant to chemotherapy and not curable with surgery. Stopping tumors from adapting to the harsh microenvironments of the body could be a potential treatment avenue.
This image shows pancreatic cancer cells (blue) growing, encased within membranes (red).
Min Yu/Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC via NIH/Flickr
Huanhuan Joyce Chen, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Abhimanyu Thakur, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Many tumors have cancer stem cells that help them grow and evade treatments. Differentiation therapy forces these cells to mature, stopping growth with less toxicity than traditional treatments.
Tumor cells traverse many different types of fluids as they travel through the body.
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Yizeng Li, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Counterintuitively, cells move faster in thicker fluids. New research on breast cancer cells explains why, and reveals the role that fluid viscosity plays in metastasis.
Killer T cells (green and red), or cytotoxic T cells, surround a cancer cell (blue, center).
NICHD/J. Lippincott-Schwartz
Gregory Allen, University of California, San Francisco
Immunotherapy has the potential to eliminate tumors, but works best for select patients. Engineering T cells to bypass cancer’s defenses could help expand treatment eligibility to more patients.
Melanoma is a particularly aggressive form of skin cancer.
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One enzyme plays a key role in how tumor cells replicate and divide indefinitely. Identifying the genes that give these cells their immortality could provide new drug targets to treat cancer.
A number of multicancer early detection tests are currently in development.
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Multicancer early detection tests are among the priorities of the Biden administration’s Cancer Moonshot. The tests show promise, but questions remain about when and how to use them.
Violet Kieu, The University of Melbourne and Kate Stern, The University of Melbourne
Both cancer and cancer treatment can impact someone’s ability to have biological children. It’s important to discuss fertility right after cancer diagnosis.
The unfolding crisis will only worsen the situation in Tigray.
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October is awash in seas of pink T-shirts, balloons and ribbons in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But this messaging fails to recognize people who are not cured of the disease.
The author in his happy place.
Photo courtesy UrbnSurf/SurfChimp
The miracles of modern medicine can be life-saving. Yet as Tim Baker writes, cancer patients yearn for a little empathy from their doctors, as well as scripts.
Stem cell transplants involve completely eliminating and then replacing the immune system of a patient, often by transplanting the bone marrow.
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Patients with blood cancer undergoing stem cell transplantation have a high risk of complications. The bacteria in their gut, however, can help their immune system recover and fight infections.
Black patients are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to have a biopsy delay of 90 days or more after an abnormal mammogram.
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Early detection of breast cancer is critical to improving chances of survival. But racial and ethnic minority patients systematically have delayed diagnoses that reduce the benefits of screening.
Dendritic cells (green) produce cytokines like IL-12, which can train T cells (pink) to attack tumors.
Victor Segura Ibarra and Rita Serda/National Cancer Institute via Flickr
Aslan Mansurov, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
One promising cancer treatment has been in the works for decades, but severe side effects have kept it out of the clinic. A reengineered version may offer a way to safely harness its potent effects.
Cancer care research usually focuses on just one of a patient’s social identities.
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Belonging to one or more groups with long-standing social and economic disadvantages increases the risk of cancer diagnoses and death.
Identifying the difference between normal genetic variation and disease-causing mutations can sometimes be difficult.
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Tumors contain thousands of genetic changes, but only a few are actually cancer-causing. A quicker way to identify these driver mutations could lead to more targeted cancer treatments.
Nanoparticles can help cancer drugs home in on tumors and avoid damaging healthy cells.
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The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines put nanomedicine in the spotlight as a potential way to treat diseases like cancer and HIV. While the field isn’t there yet, better design could help fulfill its promise.
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, AMREP Department of Medicine, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne & Senior Medical Oncologist and Palliative Care Physician, Melbourne Oncology Group, Cabrini Haematology and Oncology Centre, Wattletree Road, Malvern, Monash University