Body

White heart transplant patients under the age of 18 are more than twice as likely to be alive a decade after surgery as their African-American counterparts, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

The findings, part of a large-scale review of factors that appear to significantly influence long-term survival among pediatric heart transplant patients, will be presented this week at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Orlando.

SAN FRANCISCO — Patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have mutations in the KRAS gene should respond well to the antifolate class of drugs, according to results of a recent study conducted by Quintiles comparing human lung cancer cell lines and patients.

Male nursery web spiders (Pisaura mirabilis) prepare silk-wrapped gifts to give to potential mates. Most gifts contain insects, but some gifts are inedible plant seeds or empty exoskeletons left after the prey has already been eaten (presumably by the male himself!). Males will also 'play dead' if a female moves away and then attempt to re-establish mating. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology examines the reproductive success of deceitful males and shows that females are not impressed by worthless gifts.

SAN FRANCISCO — Findings from preclinical studies in a skin cancer model showed that next-generation BRAF inhibitors used alone, or first-generation BRAF inhibitors used in combination with an epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor, may have the potential to prevent drug-induced skin lesions in BRAF mutation-positive patients treated for melanoma.

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite the widespread use of current antiangiogenic cancer therapies, many tumors escape this blockade, which is designed to shut down growth of new blood vessels that feed tumors and spread cancer cells. Now, a study reported at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics suggests that targeting a novel antiangiogenic receptor may help patients whose cancer does not respond to existing agents.

SAN FRANCISCO — Combining the investigational agents REGN910 and aflibercept yielded statistically significant improvements in antitumor effects in animal models compared with either agent alone, according to results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held Nov. 12-16, 2011.

SAN FRANCISCO — Researchers have created a new phenotypic screening platform that better predicts success of drugs developed to prevent blood vessel tumor growth when moving out of the lab and onto actual tumors.

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – A cell's genome maintains its integrity by organizing some of its regions into a super-compressed form of DNA called heterochromatin. In the comparatively simple organism fission yeast, a cellular phenomenon known as RNA interference (RNAi) plays an essential role in assembling heterochromatin, which keeps the compressed DNA in an inactive or "silent" state. Central to this process is a large protein complex that physically anchors various molecules involved in heterochromatin assembly to the chromatin fibers.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center have identified a new drug discovery approach enabling the destruction of the most highly proliferative tumors. The discovery, published in the Nov. 13 online issue of the journal Nature Medicine, points to an effective, alternative method for killing fast-growing cancer cells without causing some of the negative effects of current therapies.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston have retraced the evolution of an unusual bacterial infection as it spread among cystic fibrosis patients by sequencing scores of samples collected during the outbreak, since contained. A significant achievement in genetic pathology, the work also suggests a new way to recognize adaptive mutations—to see evolution as it happens—and sheds new light on how our bodies resist infection.

The results are to be published online November 13 in Nature Genetics.

A major international study has identified a novel gene mutation that appears to increase the risk of both inherited and sporadic cases of malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. The identified mutation occurs in the gene encoding MITF, a transcription factor that induces the production of several important proteins in melanocytes, the cells in which melanoma originates. While previous research has suggested that MITF may act as a melanoma oncogene, the current study identifies a mechanism by which MITF mutation could increase melanoma risk.

Professional tooth scaling was associated with fewer heart attacks and strokes in a study (Abstract 17704) from Taiwan presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011.

Among more than 100,000 people, those who had their teeth scraped and cleaned (tooth scaling) by a dentist or dental hygienist had a 24 percent lower risk of heart attack and 13 percent lower risk of stroke compared to those who had never had a dental cleaning. The participants were followed for an average of seven years.

In the last three decades, thousands of women with breast cancer have taken the drug tamoxifen, only to discover that the therapy doesn't work, either because their tumors do not respond to the treatment at all, or because they develop resistance to it over time. Now researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have discovered the molecular basis for tamoxifen resistance and found a potential way to defeat it.

SAN FRANCISCO — Researchers have shown how estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer tumors become resistant to tamoxifen, the only approved hormonal therapy for premenopausal patients with this type of breast cancer. They also found that introducing a novel histone deacetylase inhibitor in hormone therapy treatment can overcome resistance to hormonal therapy.

SAN FRANCISCO — Clinical benefit from use of a novel histone deacetylase inhibitor drug may be determined by examining blood cells days after a patient receives treatment. The drug, entinostat, is the first histone deacetylase inhibitor successfully tested in a randomized, placebo-controlled study in metastatic breast cancer — and is the first to show that clinical outcome can be predicted shortly after administration.