INFORMATION:
This work is a culmination of a five-year collaborative study, which first began at UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, and is led by UQ Diamantina Institute's Professor Brandon Wainwright and Associate Professor Melissa Davis, a computational biologist from WEHI, along with a team of national and international collaborators.
The research was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the Seattle Children's Brain Tumour Endowment, the Kids Cancer Project, Brainchild, the Children's Hospital Foundation, The Pirate Ship Foundation, Cure Brain Cancer, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, The Betty Smyth Centenary Fellowship and the Victorian Government.
New generation anti-cancer drug shows promise for children with brain tumors
2021-07-07
(Press-News.org) A genetic map of an aggressive childhood brain tumour called medulloblastoma has helped researchers identify a new generation anti-cancer drug that can be repurposed as an effective treatment for the disease.
This international collaboration, led by researchers from The University of Queensland's (UQ) Diamantina Institute and WEHI in Melbourne, could give parents hope in the fight against the most common and fatal brain cancer in children.
UQ lead researcher Dr Laura Genovesi said the team had mapped the genetics of these aggressive brain tumours for five years to find new pathways that existing drugs could potentially target.
"These are drugs already approved for other diseases or cancers but have never been tested in paediatric brain tumours," Dr Genovesi said.
"In this study, we predicted a drug called Ixabepilone, typically used to treat breast cancer, would block tumour growth and significantly extend the survival rate in preclinical models."
Associate Professor Melissa Davis, joint senior author from WEHI, said the chemotherapy drug had a 'dramatic survival benefit', with very little sign of any remaining tumour following treatment.
"This is the second drug that we have identified using the genetic map that's highly effective in treating this type of childhood brain cancer," Associate Professor Davis said.
"The impact of this drug in our model systems gives hope for children diagnosed with highly aggressive forms of medulloblastoma.
"But even more promising, is the potential to use our genetic map to find other treatments for this disease."
Associate Professor Davis likened their work to a street map.
"Like a map shows streets connecting places, the genetic map shows connections between different genes that contribute to more aggressive brain tumours," she said.
Dr Genovesi said drugs that could block these connections were more likely to be effective in treating the cancer, giving researchers a head start on the best possible treatment options.
"We're really using biology to define the next round of drugs that will hopefully have a fantastic benefit for children with this condition," Dr Genovesi said.
"This gives us the best chance to identify drugs that will have the least impact on the normal developing brain, an important consideration for paediatric brain cancers.
"At the moment, the side-effects of treatment can be almost impossible for families to live with.
"Short-term, we are looking at existing drugs that can target certain overlapping areas on the genetic map.
"But long-term, we now have an entire list of proteins and pathways that new therapeutics could target that we know would kill cancer cells, and we want to work with drug companies to try and develop these life-saving medications."
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
For many students, double-dose algebra leads to college attainment
2021-07-07
ST. LOUIS -- In the United States, low-income and minority students are completing college at low rates compared to higher-income and majority peers -- a detriment to reducing economic inequality. Double-dose algebra could be a solution, according to a new study published in roceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
The paper, "Effects of Double-Dose Algebra on College Persistence and Degree Attainment," is the culmination of a series of studies that followed two cohorts of ninth-grade students over a period of 12 years in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) where double-dose algebra ...
Tiny tools: Controlling individual water droplets as biochemical reactors
2021-07-07
Miniaturization is rapidly reshaping the field of biochemistry, with emerging technologies such as microfluidics and "lab-on-a-chip" devices taking the world by storm. Chemical reactions that were normally conducted in flasks and tubes can now be carried out within tiny water droplets not larger than a few millionths of a liter. Particularly, in droplet-array sandwiching techniques, such tiny droplets are orderly laid out on two parallel flat surfaces opposite to each other. By bringing the top surface close enough to the bottom one, each top droplet makes contact with the opposite bottom droplet, exchanging chemicals and transferring particles or even cells. In quite a literal way, these droplets can act as small reaction ...
Study: Impulsiveness tied to faster eating in children, can lead to obesity
2021-07-07
BUFFALO, N.Y -- Children who eat slower are less likely to be extroverted and impulsive, according to a new study co-led by the University at Buffalo and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The research, which sought to uncover the relationship between temperament and eating behaviors in early childhood, also found that kids who were highly responsive to external food cues (the urge to eat when food is seen, smelled or tasted) were more likely to experience frustration and discomfort and have difficulties self-soothing.
These findings are critical because faster eating and greater responsiveness to food cues have been linked to obesity risk in children, ...
Young South Asian heart attack patients more likely to be obese, use tobacco
2021-07-07
A new study examining why young South Asian heart attack patients have more adverse outcomes found this patient population was often obese, used tobacco products, and had a family history of heart disease or risk factors that could have been prevented, monitored for or treated before heart attacks happen. The study will be presented at the ACC Asia 2021 Together with SCS 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting Virtual being held July 9-11, 2021.
"South Asians tend to have multiple co-morbidities including diabetes and obesity at younger ages which is different from the white population," said Salik ur Rehman Iqbal, ...
Research paves the way to early diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy
2021-07-07
Research conducted at Cruzeiro do Sul University in São Paulo, Brazil, can contribute to earlier diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy, a disorder characterized by damage to peripheral nerves, with symptoms such as pain and paresthesia (pricking, burning and numbness), mainly in the legs and feet.
In the study, a group led by Professor Paulo Barbosa de Freitas Júnior measured grip force in diabetic patients while they were holding and handling objects. The results were compared with data for healthy subjects and patients with other neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and carpal tunnel syndrome (pain, numbness and tingling in the hand and arm caused by a pinched nerve in the wrist).
Freitas and his ...
Nursing organizations state their positions on systemic racism: JANAC authors analyze themes
2021-07-07
July 7, 2021 - The murders of George Floyd and other Black Americans have prompted a national outcry against structural racism and police brutality. How are leading nursing organizations and schools of nursing defining their positions on racism? That's the topic of a special article in the July/August issue of The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC). The official journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, JANAC is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Three major national nursing organizations and many top-ranked schools ...
New study shows mathematical models helped reduce the spread of COVID-19
2021-07-07
Colorado researchers have published new findings in Emerging Infectious Diseases that take a first look at the use of SARS-CoV-2 mathematical modeling to inform early statewide policies enacted to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in Colorado. Among other findings, the authors estimate that 97 percent of potential hospitalizations across the state in the early months of the pandemic were avoided as a result of social distancing and other transmission-reducing activities such as mask wearing and social isolation of symptomatic individuals.
The modeling team was led by faculty and researchers in the Colorado School of Public Health and involved experts from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado Denver, University of Colorado ...
Discovery shows how tuning the immune system may enhance vaccines and ease disease
2021-07-07
Immunologists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have identified a biological pathway that selectively controls how key immune cells, called T follicular helper cells, mature into functional components of the immune system.
The finding offers the promise of developing drugs to activate the metabolic pathway to enhance the effectiveness of vaccines, including those that protect against COVID-19. Such medications could stimulate the immune system to respond more vigorously following immunization to produce more antibodies against a virus or bacterium.
The work also lays the foundation for drugs that dial down the pathway to alleviate autoimmune diseases such as lupus. In such disorders, an overactive immune system produces antibodies that attack the body's own tissues.
Led by ...
Energycane produces more biodiesel than soybean at a lower cost
2021-07-07
URBANA, Ill. ¬- Bioenergy from crops is a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. New crops such as energycane can produce several times more fuel per acre than soybeans. Yet, challenges remain in processing the crops to extract fuel efficiently.
Four new studies from the University of Illinois explore chemical-free pretreatment methods, development of high-throughput phenotyping methods, and commercial-scale techno-economic feasibility of producing fuel from energycane in various scenarios.
The studies are part of the ROGUE (Renewable Oil Generated with Ultra-productive Energycane) project at U of I. ROGUE focuses on bioengineering ...
Prolonged physiological, behavioral changes associated with COVID-19 infection
2021-07-07
What The Study Did: Wearable sensor data were used to examine the duration and variation of recovery among COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative participants.
Authors: Jennifer M. Radin, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.15959)
Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please ...