Award Winning Author Kage Baker Fighting Cancer

Sfscope writes that 2004 Theodore Sturgeon Award winner Kage Baker has gone public with her ongoing battle with cancer.

From the article:

• ...originally diagnosed with uterine cancer... in late December, the cancer was discovered to have metastasized to her brain, and she had brain surgery on 26 December. Three weeks later, the tumor had regenerated to the size of a golf ball.....There are also five tumors in her lungs.
  
• She is now undergoing both radiation and chemo therapy, and according to her caretaker, Kathleen, "they do seem to be helping.....
  
• Notes and letters are welcomed at either materkb at gmail dot com or 331 Stimson, Apt. B, Pismo Beach, California 93449 USA.
  

Nanoparticle Breakthrough Could Save Million of Cancer Patients

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has developed a nano-particle application expected to allow doctors to examine up to 100 distinct features in individual cancer cells.

This is similar to radioactive dyes that are now used to highlight organs for more traditional scanning technologies, but a whole magnitude more sensitive and therefor much more effective.

The real genius here is how this was acomplished. The team combined signal emitting molecules with composite organic-inorganic nanoparticles which boosted the signal strength and allow the team to track changes in certain proteins in cancer causing cells.

Read complete article here

First Designer Baby to Be Born in UK

From a recent IO9 article: The first truly designer baby will be born in Britain. She's the offspring of a woman whose family had an incredibly high incidence of early breast cancer - all traceable back to a specific gene that causes a predisposition for the disease. Without intervention, her baby would have had a 50-80% chance of getting breast cancer.

Wishing to eradicate the suspect gene the woman had her fertilized embryo tested for the gene. She was able to pick the one who did not express the gene.

Of course the procedure is not 100%. There are many other genes that can cause breast cancer as well as environmental causes.

Researchers develop Nano sized anti-cancer machines

Scientists have developed nanometer-sized anti-cancer drug delivery systems that can be injected into the bloodstream - without control from an external control system or detection by the body’s immune system, deliver anti-cancer drugs into tumors that might otherwise go untreated or undetected. Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT report that their system integrates therapeutic and diagnostic functions into a single device that avoids rapid removal by the body’s natural immune system. 1000 times smaller than a human hair, these microscopic cargo ships could one day provide the means to more effectively deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs to tumors in high concentrations without negatively impacting other parts of the body. The clever way the machines avoid detection is to coat the outside of the tiny machines with specially modified lipids--a primary component of the surface of natural cells, modified in such a way as to prevent the body from eliminationg them for up to several hours. This would allow them enough time to find and deliver the drugs to cancer cells.

<- USC news via Dvice ->

New Drug Uses Immune System To Fight Cancer

Wired is running a story about an experimental drug that coaxes the immune system to destroy cancer cells. Micromet announced that its experimental drug, MT103, had impressive results in a test upon seven Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma patients - all of whom had failed conventional treatments.

The drug uses BiTE antibodies, or bispecific T cell engagers, which are highly-engineered biological molecules with sticky ends. One side can cling to CD19, a protein found on cancerous B cells, and the other half can grab onto CD3, which is found on cytotoxic T cells. By momentarily drawing those cells together, the drug can coax the cytotoxic T cells into fighting the disease.

Training the immune system to fight cancer may be one of the best ways to keep it from coming back after several rounds of standard treatment.

Space radiation may cause prolonged cellular damage to astronauts

With major implications for long-duration space travel, a study from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center demonstrates that the high-energy radiation found in space may lead to premature aging and prolonged oxidative stress in cells. The findings suggest that astronauts may be at increased risk of colon cancer due to exposure to the high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation found in space.

“Radiation exposure, either intentional or accidental, is inevitable during our lifetimes,” says Kamal Datta, M.D., assistant professor at Lombardi and the study’s lead author. “But with plans for a mission to Mars, we need to understand more about the nature of radiation in space. There is currently no conclusive information for estimating the risk that astronauts may experience.” Full release

Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

The transponders were the cause of the tumors," said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.

AP Photo/Steve Mitchell

'Waving' cancer goodbye!

CBS news reports that a promising new inovation may allow doctors to 'wave' certain cancers away using nothing more than radio frequency waves. John Kanzius, A former radio and TV engineer and one-time station owner, , believes radio waves could somehow be harnessed to destroy cancer, without drugs or invasive surgery. Kanzius' treatments would involve a patient being injected with tiny metal nano-particles, which would be carried through the bloodstream by a targeting molecule and attach only to cancerous cells. The patient would then be exposed to an energy field created by radio waves, and feel nothing, while the nano-particles would generate enough heat to destroy their cancerous host cell.

Lab experiments using nano particles and cancer analogs have demostrated that the basic concept is sound, however targeting cancer cells will be the biggest challenge.

Kanzius' invention has caught the attention of Dr. Steven Curley, a surgical oncologist and cancer researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "This has the most fascinating potential I've seen in anything in my twenty years of cancer research," Curley stated in an interview.

Thanks to Cathy for the post

Space shield to block radiation

British scientists are planning to see whether a Star Trek-style deflector shield could be built to protect astronauts from radiation. They argue that magnetic shields could be deployed around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energetic particles. Scientists hope to mimic the magnetic field which protects the Earth. There are a variety of risks facing future space explorers, not least of which is the cancer-causing radiation from cosmic rays and solar flares that astronauts will encounter when they venture beyond the Earth's protective magnetic envelope, or magnetosphere. To create the deflector shield around a spacecraft or on the surface of a planet or moon, scientists need to generate a magnetic field and then fill it with ionised gas called plasma. The plasma would held in place by a stable magnetic field (without the magnetic field, the plasma would simply drift away). This shield could be deployed around a spacecraft or around astronauts on the surface of a planetary body such as the Moon. As energetic particles interact with the plasma, energy is sapped away from them and they slow down.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Particle physics on the cancer ward

Techniques developed by atomic physicists are being used to develop the first of what promises to be a new generation of cancer treatments in place of conventional radiotherapy. One day doctors could even be using anti-matter.

Cancer cells were successfully targeted with anti-matter subatomic particles, causing intense biological damage leading to cell death.

These pilot experiments may have future potential. But applications borrowed from particle physics are already being used in cancer treatment to help avoid the major side effects of radiotherapy.

posted by Shaun A. Saunders

Anti-cancer chicken eggs produced

English researchers have genetically modified chickens that can lay eggs containing proteins that in turn can be made into cancer-fighting drugs.

The Roslin Institute, says it has produced birds that can produce useful levels of life-saving proteins in egg whites. This could lead to drugs that are cheaper and easier to make.

But it could be another five years before patient trials get the go-ahead and 10 years until a medicine is fully developed, the Roslin Institute cautioned.

Thanks to Shaun for the post