Stem cells are up-and-coming therapies, and a major engineering problem has been scaling up the cell manufacturing to create enough cells for different therapeutic applications. Cytotwister, from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan, makes a step towards solving that with a unique 3D stem cell bioreactor system that addresses common issues in stem […]
Tag: Oncology
Nanoparticles Laden with Tapeworm Drug Stop Activity of Cancer Stem Cells
Researchers at the University of Illinois are working on preventing the metastasis of cancer by using nanoparticles laden with drugs to deactivate cancer stem cells. Cancers often spread via cancer stem cells that can reappear and grow new tumors long after a patient has been in remission. The Illini researchers managed to target these cells […]
War on Cancer: A Patient’s Journey, Comes to London
On November 21st The Economist newspaper declared War on Cancer for the third time in London, drawing world experts in oncology policy, clinical practice, and innovation together in the unique and fitting venue of the Honorable Artillery Company. With over 200 known types of cancer and each patient’s unique physiology leading to huge variations in treatment […]
Genome Editing Primes T-Cells to Attack Cancer
Scientists at Cardiff University in the UK have found a way to enhance the cancer-destroying ability of T-cells through DNA editing. The research team used CRISPR genome editing technique to remove the receptors naturally present on T-cells, and instead replace them with receptors that would recognize specific cancers cells, causing the T-cells to destroy them. […]
Sensus Healthcare’s Technology Uses Low-Energy X-rays Directly on Cancer Cells: Interview with CEO Joe Sardano
Sensus Healthcare is a medical device company that focuses on providing non-invasive and cost-effective treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers and keloids utilizing superficial radiation technology (SRT). Their proprietary, FDA-cleared SRT technology is used to effectively and safely treat oncological and non-oncological skin conditions. The radiation is focused onto cancer cells almost exclusively, and it penetrates […]
Weighing Cancer Cells Can Reveal Their Susceptibility to Chemo
At present, there is no way to predict if multiple myeloma will respond to a particular drug cancer therapy, meaning clinicians often have to take a shot in the dark and hope that something works. Researchers at MIT have developed a new method to measure how well multiple myeloma patients will respond to a specific […]
Gold Nanoshells Ferry Chemo Drugs Into Cancer Cells to Spare Rest of Body
Researchers at Rice and Northwestern universities engineered a way of encapsulating toxic chemo agents inside of gold nanoshells that deliver and deposit their contents only inside neoplastic cells. Reported on in the latest Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study involved getting docetaxel and lapatinib chemo drugs inside of gold nanoshells […]
Microfluidic Device for Onco Chemo Testing
Chemotherapy can be very difficult on patients, but finding out that the cancer didn’t respond to the chemo is even more disturbing. Soon there may be a way to try different chemo agents on a patient’s own tumor cells taken during a biopsy. Researchers at Purdue University have developed a microfluidic system inside which tumor […]
Augmented Reality May Obviate Radioactivity for Lymph Node Removals
Lymph nodes are common pathways for certain cancers to spread, requiring surgical removal. These days lymph nodes are visualized using gamma ray imagers that spot the radioactive Technetium-99m tracer that’s injected near a tumor. This is a slow process that exposes patients to a good deal of radiation, but augmented reality (AR) technology may help overcome […]
Trapping Cancer Helps to Study Dormant Cells and How to Kill Them
Cancers often come back following successful treatment, a process at least partially due to the fact that dormant cells, which are particularly resistant to common therapies like chemo, remain in the body. They’re elusive and therefore difficult to study, so progress on targeting such cells has been limited. Now scientists at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities […]
Squeezing Cancer Cells Through Tiny Holes for Diagnostic Uses
The stiffness of a cell is often an indicator of whether it is healthy or cancerous, and the so-called mechanotype, a phenotype based on cell mechanics when squeezed, is indicative of other properties of cells. Being able to easily measure how a cell deforms when under pressure has great potential for diagnostic purposes. Now the […]
Multi-Drug Printing Method to Improve Existing Meds, Help to Introduce New Ones
At the University of Michigan researchers have developed a technique for printing drug compounds directly onto skin patches, ingestable strips, and just about any other drug delivery device. Multiple drugs can be combined together to be able to produce patient-specific regimens, which would be produced inside a pharmacy, clinic, or hospital. Using a method called […]
Biosensitive Tatoo Ink Changes Color as Disease Biomarkers Fluctuate
A collaboration between scientists at Harvard and MIT has developed a tattoo ink that can be programmed to change color in response to changes in concentration of different biomarkers. For example, rising glucose levels turn the tattoo from green to brown. Unlike typical body monitoring devices, the team’s “biosensitive ink” has the benefit of not relying […]
Microfluidic Chip Takes Blood Cells Through a Labyrinth to Pick Out CTCs
Picking out circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from whole blood, known as liquid biopsy, should soon be a regular way to screen for cancer and to monitor patients that have undergone treatment. There is also evidence that there are so-called cancer stem cells (CSCs) that are particularly aggressive and that are able to morph into any kind […]
New Contrast Agent Points to Tumors, Helps Identify How Aggressive They Are
Differentiating between tumor types can be very important when choosing the right tools to fight a given cancer, but contrast agents that make tumors pop on MRI scans don’t provide much info other than where the target is. That may soon be changing, as researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a new MRI contrast […]
New Way to Deliver Chemo Agent Helps Reach Brain Tumors
While there are fairly effective medications that can kill brain tumors, getting them to their targets is so challenging that they’re often next to useless for cancers of the brain. Japanese scientists from Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion, The University of Tokyo, and Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed a shell for epirubicin, a common […]
Risk-On-a-Chip Device Mimics Environment That Causes Breast Cancer
For a long time scientists have been hoping to figure out exactly how and why cancer begins. Spotting the exact moment and location of cells turning cancerous within the body may well be impossible, so we end up studying mostly the progression and development of cancers. Breast cancer in particular has many risk factors, and […]
Microfluidic Device Suspends Live Cancer Tissue for Weeks to Study How it Spreads Through Body
At the University of Michigan researchers have developed a special microfluidic device that can help to study how cancer spreads to different parts of the body. While microfluidic systems have been in existence for years now, they typically don’t allow cells to live inside them and be monitored for longer than a few days. The […]
Quantum Dots Light Up Tumors Brighter Than Ever Before
Scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) in San Diego, California have devised a way to optically image tumors with unprecedented clarity using quantum dots. These nano structures are tiny particles, only a few nanometers wide, that generate light of a specific wavelength when they’re themselves stimulated by a light beam. On […]
Athelas Device Provides Accurate CBC Testing – From Home
For high-risk patients or those with diseases that require constant blood monitoring, going to the doctor for blood tests may soon be a thing of the past. Athelas, a company based in Mountain View, California, announced the launch of a new blood test that has been clinically validated and can be used in the patient’s […]