MD Anderson study finds weekly dose reduces a targeted drug's side effects but not its activity against acute lymphocytic leukemia
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/12/2012) - A potent chemotherapy agent wrapped within a monoclonal antibody selectively destroys the malignant cells responsible for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in either weekly or monthly dosing, researchers report at the 54th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition. This "Trojan horse" assault on the cancer cells has significantly increased the response rate among patients with ALL, and now an MD Anderson Cancer Center clinical trial finds that weekly dosing works well and reduces side effects.

Temple scientists find drug resistant stem cells may be source of genetic chaos, DNA damage in leukemia
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/12/2012) - An international team of scientists, led by researchers from Temple University School of Medicine (home to the Fox Chase Cancer Center), has found that a source of mounting genomic chaos, or instability, common to chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) may lie in a pool of leukemia stem cells that are immune to treatment with potent targeted anticancer drugs. They have shown in mice with cancer that even after treatment with the highly effective imatinib (Gleevec), stem cells that become resistant to these drugs – tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) – may continue to foster DNA damage, potentially leading to disease relapse and a downward spiral to a much more deadly “blast” stage of leukemia.

Study identifies anti-aging gene as tumor suppressor in mice
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/12/2012) - A new study sheds more light on how an anti-aging gene suppresses cancer growth, joint University of Michigan Health System (home to the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center) and Harvard Medical School (home to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) research shows. Loss of the SIRT6 protein in mice increases the number, size and aggressiveness of tumors, according to the new research published in the scientific journal Cell. The study also suggests that the loss of SIRT6 promotes tumor growth in human colon and pancreatic cancers.

Provocative Questions in Cancer Research: National Cancer Institute Science Writers’ Seminar
(Posted: 11/27/2012, Updated: 12/12/2012) - science writers' seminar to discuss various aspects of one of NCI’s signature efforts -- the Provocative Questions project. Discussion will focus on the scientific research that surrounds some of these questions.

Dana-Farber study finds blood levels of immune protein predict risk in Hodgkin disease
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - Blood levels of an immunity-related protein, galectin-1, in patients with newly diagnosed Hodgkin lymphoma reflected the extent of their cancer and correlated with other predictors of outcome, scientists reported at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting. In a study of 315 patients from a German database, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that serum galectin-1 levels "are significantly associated with tumor burden and additional adverse clinical characteristics in newly diagnosed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients."

Dana-Farber researchers find experimental graft-versus-host disease treatment equivalent to standard care in phase 3 trial
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - An experimental drug combination for preventing graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was not significantly better than the standard regimen on key endpoints, according to a report of a phase 3 trial at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting. The combination of two immunosuppressive compounds – tacrolimus plus sirolimus – did not provide a statistically significant, GVHD-free survival benefit over the long-used standard of care, tacrolimus plus methotrexate, said researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who led the multi-center trial.

Mass General-led study finds educational video helps terminal cancer patients decide whether to receive CPR
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - Patients with terminal cancer who viewed a three-minute video demonstrating cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were less likely to indicate a preference for receiving CPR in the event of an in-hospital cardiac arrest than were patients who only listened to a verbal description of the procedure. The study, led by Massachusetts General Hospital (a component of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) that will appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and is being released online today is a follow-up to a smaller, 2009 study and includes a more diverse group of patients with many forms of cancer.

UC San Diego biologists engineer algae to make complex anti-cancer 'designer' drug
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - Biologists at UC San Diego (home of the Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center) have succeeded in genetically engineering algae to produce a complex and expensive human therapeutic drug used to treat cancer. Their achievement, detailed in a paper in this week's early online issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens the door for making these and other "designer" proteins in larger quantities and much more cheaply than can now be made from mammalian cells.

Caffeinated coffee linked to lower risk of some oral cancers
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - A new multi-institute American Cancer Society study finds a strong inverse association between caffeinated coffee intake and oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality. The authors say people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day were at about half the risk of death of these often fatal cancers compared to those who only occasionally or who never drank coffee. The study is published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The authors say more research is needed to elucidate the biologic mechanisms that could be at work. The team included researchers from Emory University (home of the Winship Cancer Institute) and New York University (home of the NYU Cancer Institute).

UCSF researchers and others identify therapeutic targets in neurofibromatosis
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 12/11/2012) - In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, three independent groups of researchers, including those from UCSF, report that MAPK hyperactivation is a critical mediator of disease pathogenesis in neurofibromatosis.