Chance and circumstance tip immune control of cancer
A new computational model enables researchers to investigate cancer's earliest stages
2015-04-23
(Press-News.org) You think that your immune system is there to protect you. But what happens when it starts working against you?
In the earliest stages of cancer formation, the immune system is forced to make a momentous decision. It either activates and suppresses tumor growth to help the body fight disease, or it becomes dysfunctional, helping the tumor grow and making treatment more difficult. Because this tipping point occurs before a person even realizes something is wrong, doctors are unable to directly observe this critical stage.
"We believe that when immune cells enter a tumor site, they essentially flip a coin, and thus any one immune cell can go one way or the other," said Joshua Leonard, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. "What we didn't know is how this element of chance impacts whether the tumor survives or is instead controlled by the immune system."
Led by Leonard and his graduate student Danny Wells, an interdisciplinary team of researchers has created a computational model that enables one to examine how emerging metastatic tumors interact with the immune system. A better understanding of this sensitive early stage could potentially inform new strategies to overcome immune dysfunction, leading to better outcomes.
So far, the model has helped explain something that doctors have observed in the clinic: spatial disorganization within a tumor is a bad sign. Leonard and his collaborators found that greater disorganization within tumors can promote immunosuppression and tumor growth.
"We know there was correlation between disorganization and poor prognosis, but the reason behind this connection wasn't clear," Leonard said. "This study helps explain how heterogeneity might give rise to an environment that tips the immune system toward a tumor-promoting state."
The research is described online in the April 23 issue of PLOS Computational Biology. Other authors on the paper include William L. Kath, professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics, former McCormick professor Dirk Brockmann, former graduate student Yishan Chuang, and former undergraduate researcher Louis Knapp. Wells is first author of the paper. The interdisciplinary team came together through interaction supported by Northwestern's Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, a flagship program of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute.
The team also used the model as a virtual test bed to evaluate potential strategies for engineering cell-based therapies to overcome tumor-associated immune dysfunction. Leonard said that researchers could introduce biological therapies to shift the system away from becoming immunosuppressive, and their investigation suggestions some relatively straightforward strategies that could be effective.
"Our ability to engineer customized biological therapies using technologies like synthetic biology is rapidly expanding," Leonard said. "Computational tools like this one will play a key role in helping us design and build therapies that are both safe and effective."
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-04-23
WORCESTER, MA - Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have applied a powerful tool in a new way to characterize genetic variants associated with human disease. The work, published today in Cell, will allow scientists to more easily and efficiently describe genomic variations underlying complex, multi-gene diseases.
"Up to this point, we've only been able to investigate one disease-causing mutation at a time," said principal investigator Marian Walhout, PhD, co-director of the Program in Systems Biology and professor of molecular medicine at UMMS. ...
2015-04-23
The oncologists Manuel Hidalgo, Director of the Clinical Research Programme of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and Ignacio Garrido-Laguna, member of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute of the University of Utah (USA), have recently published a review of state-of-the-art clinical treatments for pancreatic cancer -- including the most current therapies and innovative research -- in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.
In their study, which reviews around 200 scientific articles published ...
2015-04-23
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Using a technique that introduces tiny wrinkles into sheets of graphene, researchers from Brown University have developed new textured surfaces for culturing cells in the lab that better mimic the complex surroundings in which cells grow in the body.
"We know that cells are shaped by their surroundings," said Ian Y. Wong, assistant professor of engineering and one of the study's authors. "We've shown that you can make textured environments for cell culture fairly easily using graphene."
Traditionally, cell culture in the lab has ...
2015-04-23
An enzyme secreted by the body's fat tissue controls energy levels in the brain, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings, in mice, underscore a role for the body's fat tissue in controlling the brain's response to food scarcity, and suggest there is an optimal amount of body fat for maximizing health and longevity.
The study appears April 23 in the journal Cell Metabolism.
"We showed that fat tissue controls brain function in a really interesting way," said senior author Shin-ichiro Imai, MD, PhD, professor of ...
2015-04-23
Dolphins that raise their voices to be heard in noisy environments expend extra energy in doing so, according to new research that for the first time measures the biological costs to marine mammals of trying to communicate over the sounds of ship traffic or other sources.
While dolphins expend only slightly more energy on louder whistles or other vocalizations, the metabolic cost may add up over time when the animals must compensate for chronic background noise, according to the research by scientists at NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the University ...
2015-04-23
TORONTO, ON. (23 April, 2015) - A new study led by University of Toronto researcher Dr. David Lam has discovered the trigger behind the most severe forms of cancer pain. Released in top journal Pain this month, the study points to TMPRSS2 as the culprit: a gene that is also responsible for some of the most aggressive forms of androgen-fuelled cancers.
Head of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Faculty of Dentistry, Lam's research initially focused on cancers of the head and neck, which affect more than 550,000 people worldwide each year. Studies have shown that these ...
2015-04-23
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A 47-year-old African-American woman has heavy menstrual bleeding and iron-deficiency anemia. She reports the frequent need to urinate during the night and throughout the day. A colonoscopy is negative and an ultrasonography shows a modestly enlarged uterus with three uterine fibroids, noncancerous growths of the uterus. She is not planning to become pregnant. What are her options?
Elizabeth (Ebbie) Stewart, M.D., chair of Reproductive Endocrinology at Mayo Clinic, says the woman has several options, but determining her best option is guided by her ...
2015-04-23
ANN ARBOR--Use of clean fuels and updated pollution control measures in the school buses 25 million children ride every day could result in 14 million fewer absences from school a year, based on a study by the University of Michigan and the University of Washington.
In research believed to be the first to measure the individual impact on children of the federal mandate to reduce diesel emissions, researchers found improved health and less absenteeism, especially among asthmatic children.
A change to ultra low sulfur diesel fuel reduced a marker for inflammation in ...
2015-04-23
Boosting teenagers' ability to cope with online risks, rather than trying to stop them from using the Internet, may be a more practical and effective strategy for keeping them safe, according to a team of researchers.
In a study, more resilient teens were less likely to suffer negative effects even if they were frequently online, said Haiyan Jia, post-doctoral scholar in information sciences and technology.
"Internet exposure does not necessarily lead to negative effects, which means it's okay to go online, but the key seems to be learning how to cope with the stress ...
2015-04-23
CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Drizzling honey on toast can produce mesmerizing, meandering patterns, as the syrupy fluid ripples and coils in a sticky, golden thread. Dribbling paint on canvas can produce similarly serpentine loops and waves.
The patterns created by such viscous fluids can be reproduced experimentally in a setup known as a "fluid mechanical sewing machine," in which an overhead nozzle deposits a thick fluid onto a moving conveyor belt. Researchers have carried out such experiments in an effort to identify the physical factors that influence the patterns that form. ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Chance and circumstance tip immune control of cancer
A new computational model enables researchers to investigate cancer's earliest stages
