Cancer – Page 6 – Impact Lab

Cancer, Medical Breakthrough, mobile technology, new technology, Science & Technology News

Researchers create hand-held device for patients to read levels of cancer biomarker in their own blood

October 18, 2020

Newswise: Researchers create hand-held device for patients to read levels of cancer biomarker in their own blood

Newswise — HAMILTON, ON, Oct. 8, 2020 — Researchers at McMaster and Brock universities have created the prototype for a hand-held device to measure a biomarker for cancer, paving the way for home-based cancer monitoring and to improve access to diagnostic testing.

The device works much like the monitors that diabetics use to test their blood-sugar levels and could be used in a medical clinic or at home, all without lab work, greatly simplifying the process for testing blood for cancer’s signature.

A user would mix a droplet of blood in a vial of reactive liquid, then place the mixture onto a strip and insert it into a reader. In minutes, the device would measure an antigen that indicates the degree to which cancer is present.

The prototype has been designed to monitor prostate specific antigen (PSA) and the technology can readily be adapted to measure other markers, depending on the form of cancer or other chronic disease.

Continue reading… “Researchers create hand-held device for patients to read levels of cancer biomarker in their own blood”

Artificial Intelligence, Biotech, Cancer, Medical Breakthrough, Nanotechnology, Science & Technology News

Biochip innovation combines AI and nanoparticles to analyze tumors

October 16, 2020

Electrical engineers, computer scientists and biomedical engineers at the University of California, Irvine have created a new lab-on-a-chip that can help study tumor heterogeneity to reduce resistance to cancer therapies.

In a paper published today in Advanced Biosystems, the researchers describe how they combined artificial intelligence, microfluidics and nanoparticle inkjet printing in a device that enables the examination and differentiation of cancers and healthy tissues at the single-cell level.

“Cancer cell and tumor heterogeneity can lead to increased therapeutic resistance and inconsistent outcomes for different patients,” said lead author Kushal Joshi, a former UCI graduate student in biomedical engineering. The team’s novel biochip addresses this problem by allowing precise characterization of a variety of cancer cells from a sample.

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Cancer, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine, Science & Technology News

New cancer vaccine ready for human trials

July 16, 2020

Scientists are ready to trial a new cancer vaccine in humans following the successful outcome of their preclinical studies.

The new vaccine was developed by a Mater Research team based at The Translational Research Institute in collaboration with The University of Queensland.

Lead Researcher Associate Professor Kristen Radford says the vaccine has the potential to treat a variety of blood cancers and malignancies and is a major breakthrough for cancer vaccinations.

“We are hoping this vaccine could be used to treat blood cancers, such as myeloid leukaemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and paediatric leukaemias, plus solid malignancies including breast, lung, renal, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers, and glioblastoma,” she said.

“Our new vaccine is comprised of human antibodies fused with tumour-specific protein, and we are investigating its capacity to target human cells while activating the memory of the tumour cells.”

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Augmented Reality, Cancer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Study demonstrates feasibility of hologram technology in liver tumor ablation

July 2, 2020

Data from one of the first clinical uses of augmented reality guidance with electromagnetically tracked tools shows that the technology may help doctors quickly, safely, and accurately deliver targeted liver cancer treatments, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting on June 14. The technology provides a three-dimensional holographic view inside a patient’s body, allowing interventional radiologists to accurately burn away tumors while navigating to avoid organs and other critical structures.

“Converting traditional two-dimensional imaging into three-dimensional holograms which we can then utilize for guidance using augmented reality helps us to better view a patient’s internal structures as we navigate our way to the point of treatment,” said Gaurav Gadodia, MD, lead author of the study and radiology resident at Cleveland Clinic. “While conventional imaging like ultrasound and CT is safe, effective, and remains the gold-standard of care, augmented reality potentially improves the visualization of the tumor and surrounding structures, increasing the speed of localization and improving the treating-physician’s confidence.”

Continue reading… “Study demonstrates feasibility of hologram technology in liver tumor ablation”

Cancer, Healthcare, Medicine, new technology, Science & Technology News

New technology enables fast protein synthesis

June 10, 2020

MIT chemists have developed a protocol to rapidly produce protein chains up to 164 amino acids long. The flow-based technology could speed up drug development and allow scientists to design novel protein variants incorporating amino acids that don’t occur naturally in cells. The automatic tabletop machine, pictured here, is nicknamed the “Amidator” by the research team. Credit: MIT

Many proteins are useful as drugs for disorders such as diabetes, cancer, and arthritis. Synthesizing artificial versions of these proteins is a time-consuming process that requires genetically engineering microbes or other cells to produce the desired protein.

MIT chemists have devised a protocol to dramatically reduce the amount of time required to generate synthetic proteins. Their tabletop automated flow synthesis machine can string together hundreds of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, within hours. The researchers believe their new technology could speed up the manufacturing of on-demand therapies and the development of new drugs, and allow scientists to design artificial proteins by incorporating amino acids that don’t exist in cells.

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Cancer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Cancer study stumbles onto potential way to regenerate heart cells

May 3, 2020

New research could lead to a gene therapy treatment for heart disease

Unfortunately for heart attack patients, heart cells don’t naturally replenish, so this vital organ stays permanently damaged. But now, Cambridge researchers have stumbled onto a gene that appears to trigger heart cell regeneration – and they did so by accident, while researching cancer treatments.

After a heart attack, the human heart will patch itself up with scar tissue. That helps keep the organ together, but this tissue doesn’t beat like healthy heart cells do. Over time, this leads to further attacks, heart failure and often death.

Scientists have been experimenting with ways to replenish heart cells, and promising leads so far include bioengineered scaffolds, placental stem cells, and boosting other cells around the heart.

Continue reading… “Cancer study stumbles onto potential way to regenerate heart cells”

Cancer, Coronavirus, Health & Fitness, Hot Issues, Science & Technology News

No, the coronavirus is not the leading cause of death in the US, CDC says

April 27, 2020

US coronavirus deaths pass 14,000, but future projections are better than expected

(CNN)Even though the coronavirus pandemic continues to take lives across the United States, Covid-19 has not become the leading cause of death in the nation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to CNN.

“There are no data to support that theory,” Jeff Lancashire, a spokesperson for the National Center for Health Statistics, said in an email on Friday.

False claims declaring that coronavirus has become the leading cause of death in the US have swirled as the US leads the world in coronavirus cases. Those claims are made by some experts comparing how many people die of coronavirus daily with the estimate of how many people may die daily on average of each leading cause of death, using CDC data.

Continue reading… “No, the coronavirus is not the leading cause of death in the US, CDC says”

Cancer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Potentially the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin

April 19, 2020

“Immunotherapy is the biggest breakthrough in medicine in our generation”: Associate Professor Alex Menzies from Melanoma Institute Australia.

If there is reason to have faith in the scientists, immunologists, virologists and oncologists racing to develop a vaccine for coronavirus, it is the stunning progress they are having in reducing deaths from what is called “Australia’s cancer”.

A decade ago, a diagnosis of advanced or stage four melanoma was effectively a death sentence within six to nine months.

But a leading medical oncologist, Associate Professor Alex Menzies from Melanoma Institute Australia, believes immunotherapy treatments – using the body’s immune system to attack the cancer cells – mean 50 per cent of these patients are surviving long enough to be considered cured.

Continue reading… “Potentially the biggest medical breakthrough since penicillin”

Cancer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

93% of cancer patients respond to souped-up-immune cells

April 17, 2020

In a new study of CAR T-cell therapy for cancer, 93% of patients responded to the treatment.

Two physicians had major roles in a cutting-edge clinical trial using the body’s own immune cells to fight late-stage cancer, one as a researcher and one as a patient.

Senior author Patrick Reagan, an assistant professor of hematology/oncology at University of Rochester Medicine’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, helped run the national clinical investigation of CAR T-cell therapy.

Continue reading… “93% of cancer patients respond to souped-up-immune cells”

Cancer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, new technology, Science & Technology News

Universal cancer blood test detects and locates 50 types of tumors

April 10, 2020

A new universal cancer blood test can spot over 50 types of tumors and identify where they are in the body

Cancer is one of humanity’s leading killers, and the main reason for that is it’s often hard to detect until it’s too late. But that might be about to change. Researchers have developed a new type of AI-powered blood test that can accurately detect over 50 different types of cancer and even identify where it is in the body.

There are just so many types of cancer that it’s virtually impossible to keep an eye out for all of them through routine tests. Instead, the disease usually isn’t detected until doctors begin specifically looking for it, after a patient experiences symptoms. And in many cases, by then it can be too late.

Ideally, there would be a routine test patients can undergo that would flag any type of cancer that may be budding in the body, giving treatment the best shot of being successful. And that’s just what the new study is working towards.

Continue reading… “Universal cancer blood test detects and locates 50 types of tumors”

Biotech, Cancer, DNA, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Crumpled graphene makes ultra-sensitive cancer DNA detector

April 3, 2020

Graphene-based biosensors could usher in an era of liquid biopsy, detecting DNA cancer markers circulating in a patient’s blood or serum. But current designs need a lot of DNA. In a new study, crumpling graphene makes it more than ten thousand times more sensitive to DNA by creating electrical “hot spots,” researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found.

Crumpled graphene could be used in a wide array of biosensing applications for rapid diagnosis, the researchers said. They published their results in the journal Nature Communications.

“This sensor can detect ultra-low concentrations of molecules that are markers of disease, which is important for early diagnosis,” said study leader Rashid Bashir, a professor of bioengineering and the dean of the Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois. “It’s very sensitive, it’s low-cost, it’s easy to use, and it’s using graphene in a new way.”

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Cancer, DNA, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Scientists might have accidentally cured cancer

January 26, 2020

Research Into Cancer Conducted At The Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute

New treatment for killing cancer cells may have accidentally been discovered by a group of British scientists, according to reports.

Cardiff University’s research team found a T-Cell that attaches itself onto human cancers, and kills them while ignoring healthy cells. Although in its early stages of development, the treatment successfully destroys bone, lung, breast, colon, prostate, and other cancers, The Telegraph reported. (RELATED: Alex Trebek Announces He Was Diagnosed With Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer)

Originally, researchers were only looking for immune cells that were capable of fighting bacteria, before they discovered the T-Cell virus. Their findings were made available on Monday.

“There’s a chance here to treat every patient,” Professor Andrew Sewell of Cardiff University told the BBC. “Previously nobody believed this could be possible. It raises the prospect of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cancer treatment, a single type of T-cell that could be capable of destroying many different types of cancers across the population.”

Continue reading… “Scientists might have accidentally cured cancer”