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Tag: Cancer Research

  • Farrah Fawcett Foundation to Fund HPV-Related Cancer Research Team

    The Farrah Fawcett Foundation has joined Stand Up to Cancer and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) to form a research team dedicated to researching HPV-related cancers, the organizations announced at a press event in San Diego on Monday.

    The event was part of the AACR Annual Meeting, held in San Diego April 5-9. The HPV and Anal Cancer Foundation is supporting the effort to develop new immune therapies for HPV-associated by giving additional funding to Stand Up to Cancer.

    The grant will provide $1.2 million in funding over three years for the project. The research team aims to develop new vaccines and other immunotherapeutic approaches as treatments for patients with HPV-associated cancers – including anal, cervical, head and neck cancers. Research will focus on patients with HPV-related cancers who relapse after receiving therapy, and for whom few treatment options are available. The team’s goal is to improve outcomes for patients of this population.

    “It’s estimated that more than 30,000 HPV-associated cancers occur each year in the United States alone,” said Sherry Lansing, SU2C co-founder, founder of the Sherry Lansing Foundation, and chairperson of the Entertainment Industry Foundation Board of Directors.

    “Research into new therapies that will benefit patients is urgently needed,” Lansing said.

    “By collaborating with other organizations who share our urgency for a cure, we hope to overcome barriers to therapeutic progress and end the suffering caused by HPV, which causes 5 percent of all cancers worldwide,” said Justine Almada, executive director of the HPV and Anal Cancer Foundation.

    Fawcett was diagnosed in 2006, and founded the Farrah Fawcett Foundation a year later. She died of anal cancer in 2009 at the age of 62.

    “Farrah was committed to the struggle against anal cancer and other forms of cancer,” said Alana Stewart, chief executive officer and president of the Farrah Fawcett Foundation.

    “We are very pleased to continue Farrah’s legacy by supporting this important scientific initiative,” Stewart said.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Farrah Fawcett Foundation Forms HPV Research Team

    The Farrah Fawcett Foundation announced this week that it will be teaming up with Stand Up To Cancer and the American Association for Cancer Research to create a team dedicated solely to the research of HPV and HPV-related cancers. The project will be called “Therapeutic CD8 vaccines against conserved E7 HPV epitopes identified by MS.”, and the foundations will provide $1.2 million in grant monies for the project. The grant will be made available to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for a clinical trial of a cancer-fighting antigen.

    “We believe that the grant committee was encouraged by novel interdisciplinary science in conjunction with the powerful immunogenicity data that Immunovaccine has collected to date with our DPX-Survivac cancer vaccine candidate,” said Marc Mansour, Ph.D., who is the chief operating officer of Immunovaccine. “We are excited to work with the talented team at Dana-Farber and add value to their clinical program with our DepoVax technology. Our previous work with DPX-Survivac gives us confidence that DepoVax has the potential to induce strong immunological responses to their novel antigen to enable the vaccine in the clinic.”

    Fawcett died of anal cancer in 2009, a disease predominantly caused by HPV. The iconic actress was diagnosed in 2006, and a year later started the Farrah Fawcett Foundation. She was deeply interested in alternative medicines and helping those who had been diagnosed, particularly children and families who couldn’t keep up with mounting medical bills.

    “Farrah was committed to the struggle against anal cancer and other forms of cancer,” said Alana Stewart, president of the Farrah Fawcett Foundation. “We are very pleased to continue Farrah’s legacy by supporting this important scientific initiative.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Breakthrough in Melanoma Treatment Research

    Funded by the National Cancer Institute, The Wistar Institute recently released a finding in their research on treating metastatic melanoma. Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that can be found anywhere on the body. Metastatic melanoma spreads to areas of the body other than the site of the original tumor. While usually not life threatening when discovered and treated early, this still remains the most aggressive of skin cancers as it spreads and mutates quickly.

    While there are treatments for metastatic melanoma, they aren’t always effective. In a recent article, The Wistart Institute states, “[M]etastatic cancer cells inevitably evolve resistance to drugs. Research found that various mutations in the melanoma increased their resistance to the therapy drugs.” While this finding initially seemed grim, it led researchers to focus on a new aspect of the cancer, the S6K protein.

    Current therapies targeted the BRAF and MEK genes, but the melanomas quickly mutated so that the drugs could not block the growth of all of the mutated genes. Researchers have now found that attacking the pathway to the S6K protein, as well as the BRAF and MEK genes simultaneously is an effective method in fighting mutated genes before they become unresponsive to the drugs, blocking the growth of tumors.

    This research has not yet been applied to patients, but has created a new approach on treating metastatic melanomas and relevant drug development. The Wistar Institute wrote, “Although a cocktail of two drugs (a combination of BRAF and P13K/mTOR inhibitors, for example) might work, they postulated that using three drugs could be more potent and counter intuitively less toxic at the same time.”

    While there is clearly much left to research and learn on this subject, the findings of these studies are hopeful as far as gaining a better understanding of the cancer itself, not to mention the discovery of a new potential cocktail that not only blocks one of the deadliest skin cancers, but introduces less toxicity to the patient than current therapies.

    Given that melanoma is one of the deadliest cancers, several institutes and centers continue to conduct ongoing research on the cancer as drug companies attempt further developments to treatments. It is important to note that with laws and policies rapidly changing, new drugs will likely be released more quickly in the future.

    Image from Wikimedia Commons.

  • U.S. Death Rate From Cancer is Dropping Fast

    Though cancer hasn’t been completely cured, it’s clear that treatments for the disease have improved over the past two decades. A yearly report from the American Cancer Society has shown that the death rate from cancer in the U.S. is declining among all Americans and for the most common types of cancer.

    The report, published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, shows that the death rate from all cancers combined has been falling since the early 1990. From 2000 to 2009, combined cancer death rates have fallen an average of 1.8% among men and 1.4% among women. Black men and black women saw the largest declines in cancer deaths from 2000 to 2009, though their cancer death rates from 2005 to 2009 were still highest when compared to other racial groups.

    Though death rates for cancers such as lung cancer , breast cancer, and colon cancer are declining, the rate of diagnoses for some cancers is increasing. The rate of new cases of pancreas, kidney, thyroid, liver, melanoma, and myeloma cancers have all increased in men from 2000 to 2009. For women, rates of new cases of thyroid, melanoma, kidney, pancreas, liver, leukemia, and uterus cancers increased during the same period. The report points out that excess weight and lack of physical activity are risk factors for many of these cancers.

    “The continuing drop in cancer mortality over the past two decades is reason to cheer,” said John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society. “The challenge we now face is how to continue those gains in the face of new obstacles, like obesity and HPV infections. We must face these hurdles head on, without distraction, and without delay, by expanding access to proven strategies to prevent and control cancer.”

    A special section of the report highlighted trends related to human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers. From 2000 to 2009, HPV-associated oropharyngeal (throat) cancer rates increased among white men and women, while anal cancer rates among all men and women increased. Rates of vulva cancer were up among women, though cervical cancer rates declined among all women except Native Americans. The report shows that fewer than one-third of girls aged 13 to 17 had received all 3 recommended doses of the HPV vaccine. Girls in the Southern U.S., those who live in poverty, and those who are hispanic were less likely to get all three doses.

    “While this report shows that we are making progress in the fight against cancer on some fronts, we still have much work to do, particularly when it comes to preventing cancer,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “For example, vaccinating against HPV can prevent cervical cancer, but, tragically, far too many girls are growing into adulthood vulnerable to cervical cancer because they are not vaccinated.”

  • Colon Cancer Cells “Two-Faced,” Shows Study

    Colon Cancer Cells “Two-Faced,” Shows Study

    A new study has revealed a group of colon cancer cells that can either suppress or promote tumor growth. Researchers stated that these “two-faced” cells are a subset of T-regulatory (Treg) cells that are known to suppress immune response.

    The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, also showed that the two-faced cells were differentiated in their cancer growth or suppression forms by the presence of a protein called RORγt.

    “The subset of Tregs that expand in human colon cancer is different from the Tregs that abound in healthy individuals in their ability to suppress inflammation,” said Khashayarsha Khazaie team leader of the research and an associate professor at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University. “Since their discovery, Tregs have been assumed to be harmful in cancer based on the knowledge that they suppress immunity. More recent clinical studies have challenged this notion. Our work shows that Tregs, by suppressing inflammation, are normally very protective in cancer; it is rather their switch to the expression of RORγt that is detrimental.”

    The study identified the abnormal Treg subset in mice with hereditary colon cancer, then looked for the same cells in human colon cancer patients. Research has already demonstrated that transferring Tregs from healthy mice to cancerous mice protects the cancerous mice from colitis and colitis-induced cancer. By inhibiting RORγt in Tregs, Khazaie and his team were able to protect mice against hereditary colon cancer.

    “Tregs are actually very useful in the fight against cancer,” said Khazaie. “We can do better by targeting RORγt or other molecules that are responsible for the expansion of this Treg subset, instead of indiscriminately eliminating all Tregs. We are very excited about the therapeutic options that targeting specific subsets of Tregs could provide in human solid tumor cancers, and that is our next immediate goal.”

  • Quit Smoking And Win Free Cigarettes?

    Quit Smoking And Win Free Cigarettes?

    In what seems like the most ridiculous anti-smoking campaign to date, Phillip-Morris is offering free cigarettes to smokers who feature the best tips on how they quit the habit. I am not serious, of course, but I would not put it past them. Seriously, we have known that cigarettes and tobacco are killing us for decades and yet the habit is still popular as hell.

    Here’s the space where I tell you how to effectively stop using those evil cancer sticks. First and foremost you have to be like an alcoholic and admit you’re powerless against these inanimate consumer products. Next, coat your your ass with nicotine embedded patches to pacify your cravings.

    Also, purchase plenty of Nicorette gum so you can avoid being pissed-off at everybody who crosses your path throughout the day. Continue these actions for ten days and avoid stress for three years and you’ll be cured. Follow this prescribed regiment to the letter and you will be sufficiently convinced you have no will power.

    But, let’s move on the the meat of the story, anti-smoking ads are having an effect and there’s new evidence to support that claims.

    On March 14th, the online Journal of the National Cancer Institute published data that suggests that nearly 800,000 new lung cancer cases have been avoided by public efforts to discourage smoking. This data only accounts for data from 1975 to the year 2000. I think this figure is surprisingly low. Yes, 800,000 is a big number, but don’t more people die in traffic accidents, we still drive cars don’t we?

    Dr. Suresh Moolgavkar, of the biostatistics and biomathematics program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle comments on the trend:

    “Quitting smoking most definitely reduces deaths from lung cancer. However, too many people continue to smoke,”

    “The most effective way to reduce the burden of lung cancer is to get smokers to quit and to prevent non-smokers from taking up smoking.”

    So if the surgeon general had not published all the reports and all the warnings we would probably have had more like a million new lung cancer cases. That’s not even taking into account how many people who quit just because the habit is so damn expensive.

    Eric Feuer, chief of the Statistical Methodology and Applications Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute adds to the anti-smoking sentiments:

    “We can’t let our guard down and we really need to continue our efforts,”

    Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City says that smoking accounts for more disease than just lung cancer:

    “Smoking cessation would also reduce rates of heart attack, stroke and the lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,”

    He claims they find new damage caused to our bodies by smoking all the time. So more than likely the 800,000 lives figure is missing the mark in a number of ways. The number probably finds itself in the millions rather than thousands.

    Regardless that’s the news for a 25-year span from 1975 to 2000. I wonder what they’ll have to report about smoking in 2025 when another two and a half decades has passed? Perhaps people won’t be smoking anymore, but I doubt it. I think it’s human nature to seek destructive behavior, and some people just do anything they’re told not to do. We’ll see.