Body

SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 7, 2014) - Researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center report promising outcomes from a clinical trial with patients with a rare form of bone marrow failure who received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) after pre-treatment with immunosuppressive drugs only. This is the first trial reporting successful transplant in dyskeratosis congenita (DC) patients without the use of any radiation or conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy beforehand.

The "molecular mail" sent by multiple myeloma cells provides clues to how well patients with the disease are likely to respond to treatment, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. 

The findings - to be presented in poster form on December 6, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, in the West Building, Level 1 - may ultimately guide doctors in deciding which therapies are best for individual patients with myeloma, the study authors say. 

An innovative cell therapy against a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) continues to show highly promising results in children treated in a pilot study. Ninety-two percent of the 39 children receiving bioengineered T cells had no evidence of cancer at one month after treatment, with this complete response persisting in some cases for more than two years. The personalized cell therapy reprograms a patient's immune system and offers the potential of long-term success.

SAN FRANCISCO - A therapy that liberates the immune system to attack cancer cells drove Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) into complete or partial remission in fully 87 percent of patients with resistant forms of the disease who participated in an early-phase clinical trial, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and partnering institutions report in a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and simultaneously presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 6, 2014--In recent years, a number of scientific breakthroughs have led to the development of drugs that unleash the power of the immune system to recognize and attack cancer. Studies presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) highlight the enormous potential these novel treatments have for patients with a variety of hematologic disorders.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals the role of a receptor protein derived from a gene that has been linked to human growth.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have devised a powerful algorithm that improves the effectiveness of an important research technology harnessing RNA interference, or RNAi.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release natural gas from underground rock. Recent discussions have centered on potential air and water pollution from chemicals used in these processes and how it affects the more than 15 million Americans living within one mile of UOG operations. Now, Susan C.

WASHINGTON -- Researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center have completed a critical step in the journey from a basic science discovery in the lab to a potential clinical application, showing that an experimental agent prevents tumor growth and spread in mice with prostate cancer harboring a common chromosomal abnormality.

Humans are rapidly changing the look and function of earth's ecosystems, from the increase of greenhouse gases to the unintentional and harmful spread of plants and animals to new environments. A major challenge for ecologists is to understand how and why communities respond to factors that underlie global change.

A University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study is finding some clues. It shows that just as our family histories dictate what we look like and how we act, plant evolutionary history shapes community responses to interacting agents of global change.

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - December 5, 2014) An international research collaborative has determined that a promising anti-malarial compound tricks the immune system to rapidly destroy red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite but leave healthy cells unharmed. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists led the study, which appears in the current online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

When you go to bed and how long you sleep at a time might actually make it difficult for you to stop worrying, according to researchers at Binghamton University. The study, led by Binghamton Anxiety Clinic Director Meredith Coles and graduate student Jacob Nota, found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed very late at night are often overwhelmed with more negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours. The findings appear in Springer's journal Cognitive Therapy and Research, being published this month.

With so much focus on risk factors for disease, we are living in an era of surveillance medicine, in which the emphasis on risk blurs the lines between health and illness, argue researchers at Yale and Syracuse universities in a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

(NEW YORK - December 5, 2014) A key protein may represent a new way to use the immune system to speed healing and counter inflammatory, infectious and autoimmune diseases, according to study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the December issue of Cell Reports.

This news release is available in German.