Posted: Sunday, June 2, 2013, 3:01 AM The two lesions can be a sign of a genetic syndrome, Muir-Torre, which predisposes patients to internal malignancies. These patients often have the two growths, sebaceous neoplasms and keratoacanthomas, and are at higher risk for tumors of the colon, the reproductive and urinary systems, and the breast. These malignancies occur together because these patients have a defect in genes involved in copying DNA. They have abnormal "mismatch repair" genes, meaning their cells don't proofread DNA for errors when duplicating cells. This lack of error-checking leads to accumulated mutations, and even cancer. Moreover, this syndrome is very easy to inherit across generations, and often affects multiple patients in a family. Recognizing the warning signs, I counseled the patient about the need for more aggressive screening and a genetic workup. She was nervous. She asked all the right questions. Was this necessary? What would it mean for the rest of her family, or her own prospects of getting or keeping health (or life) insurance? These questions are tough to answer, but we know that our best chance at treating cancer is early diagnosis. And that, of course, was her main question: "Does this mean I … Continue reading →

In 2004, with President George W. Bush dead set against stem cell research, California just went ahead and did it. Voters made stem cell research a state constitutional right, and endorsed $3 billion in bond sales for 10 years to cement the deal. CIRM, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created under Proposition 71, has become a world center for stem cell research, and its president is Australian Alan Trounson, a pioneer in in vitro fertilization. As Proposition 71 approaches its 10-year anniversary, Trounson offers a prognosis. Q: It's been almost 10 years since California funded what may be the world's biggest stem cell research program. What are you up to? A: We are working hard to get six or seven projects to clinical trials. We have more than 70 (total) programs moving (toward) clinical trials. It's a lot of work to chaperon. I'll give you three examples: one, linking genetics, or genomics work, to stem cells, integrating the two. We're going to create a center in California that will bring a lot of (genetics) studies and clinical work to a new level. Secondly, we've set up a structure for banking the 3,000 cell lines from "induced pluripotent stem cells" … Continue reading →

Welcome to the Era of Nanomedicine What if you could swallow a pill that conducts surgery? What can the world's tiniest robots do to DNA and cells? Harvard Medical School's Dr. Omid Farokhzad, one of the leading researchers... By: WSJDigitalNetwork … Continue reading →

Hollywood actor Angelina Jolies recent double mastectomy may have intensified the debate on breast cancer, but the number of women affected by it only continues to rise. One of the many causes of fatality is the high toxicity of the treatment and the current disability of affected cells to absorb the dosage. Patients do not respond to hormonal therapy and require more than one chemotherapy drug for treatment. Unfortunately, such combination chemotherapy increases the toxicity of the treatment, often limiting the extent of therapy tolerated. Many women with triple negative breast cancer develop multi-drug resistance making them insensitive to anti-cancer drugs. However, theres a ray of hope for the millions of women suffering from breast cancer: Professor Rinti Banerjees research. Assimilation of drugs according to Banerjees books will give greater hope of recovery for the patients. The way anti-cancer drugs are administered today are through intravenous chemotherapy, which means two separate drugs like paclitaxel and doxorubicin are injected into the system separately, said Prof Banerjee, who heads the nanomedicine laboratory in the department of Biosciences & Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). Two things happen. These drugs being high on toxicity randomly kill normal and rapidly dividing … Continue reading →

Why Lie Detectors Are BS Lie detectors are a pretty cool sounding idea. But how valid are the results they produce? Should they be used more often, or sent to the junkyard? Laci look... By: DNews … Continue reading →