Body

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 28, 2012— Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered how modifying a gene halts the toxic buildup of a protein found in nerve cells. These findings point to a potential new tactic for treating a variety of neurodegenerative conditions, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease)—a fatal disease for which there is no cure.

BOSTON, MA (October 28, 2012)—Not all women diagnosed with operable breast cancer present with a single tumor; some have multifocal disease appear in the breast, which means multiple tumors found in the same breast quadrant, while others have multicentric disease, where multiple tumors are found in separate breast quadrants. Multifocal or multicentric disease is not a standard indication to receive radiation after mastectomy.

BOSTON, MA (October 28, 2012)—Men whose testosterone drops following radiation therapy for prostate cancer are more likely to experience a change in PSA levels that signals their cancer has returned, according to new research from Fox Chase Cancer Center. The findings will be presented on October 29 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's 54th Annual Meeting.

BOSTON, MA (October 28, 2012)—Rectal cancer is more likely to spread to the lymph nodes in younger patients, according to new findings that Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers will be presenting on October 29 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's 54th Annual Meeting. The results—which are the first of their kind—suggest that doctors should search for spreading more aggressively in these patients.

Canadian scientists have discovered that a protein called resistin, secreted by fat tissue, causes high levels of "bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL), increasing the risk of heart disease.

The research, presented today at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, proves that resistin increases the production of LDL in human liver cells and also degrades LDL receptors in the liver. As a result, the liver is less able to clear "bad" cholesterol from the body. Resistin accelerates the accumulation of LDL in arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease.

Immediately after acute kidney injury (AKI), the immune system mounts a response that increases inflammation, causing additional kidney damage.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Li Li at the University of Virginia examined the role of the anti-inflammatory molecule adenosine in mediating this immune response.

Tumor cell adaptation is a major cause of cancer progression. Immune selection drives adaption in human cancers by selecting for tumor cells that evade the immune system.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by T.C. Wu at Johns Hopkins University report that immune selection drives tumor cells to adopt a stem cell-like phenotype.

Hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) is a physiological mechanism by which the pulmonary arteries redirect blood flow from a low oxygen area of the lungs to a region that is oxygen rich.

p>VEGF, a protein that mediates blood vessel growth, is a common target of therapies that are directed at controlling vascular abnormalities in cancer and eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy.

Long-term glucocorticoid treatment is associated with many dangerous side effects, including weight gain, insulin resistance, diabetes, and osteoporosis; however, the pathological mechanisms that cause these side effects are not well understood.

Risk prediction models developed from an ancillary study of the Prostate Lung Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) may be useful in the public health sector for identifying individuals who are at risk for adverse smoking outcomes, such as relapse among former smokers and continued smoking among current smokers, and those who may benefit from relapse prevention and smoking cessation interventions according to a study published October 26 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

It may sound like a post-season football game for very tiny players, but the "nanobowl" has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with improving the way biofuels are produced. That's the hope of a team of scientists from the Institute for Atom Efficient Chemical Transformations (IACT), an Energy Frontier Research Center led by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), and including Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin and Purdue University.

Baltimore, MD— The ability of embryonic stem cells to differentiate into different types of cells with different functions is regulated and maintained by a complex series of chemical interactions, which are not well understood. Learning more about this process could prove useful for stem cell-based therapies down the road. New research from a team led by Carnegie's Yixian Zheng zeroes in on the process by which stem cells maintain their proper undifferentiated state. Their results are published in Cell October 26.

When talking to the key immune system fighters known as T-cells, it helps to speak their language. Now researchers from Columbia University in New York, N.Y., and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have discovered two new conditions for communication that may help scientists one day harness the power of T-cells to fight diseases such as cancer. The team will present its findings at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 28 – Nov. 2 in Tampa, Fla.

When surgeons operate to remove a tumor, determining exactly where to cut can be tricky. Ideally, the entire tumor should be removed while leaving a continuous layer of healthy tissue, but current techniques for locating the tumors during surgery are imprecise. Now a multidisciplinary team from the University of California, San Diego, is developing an alternate means of precisely tagging breast cancer tumors for removal or targeted destruction. They will present the results of their investigations at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 28 – Nov. 2 in Tampa, Fla.