What's New in Cancer Research?

Clinical studies that group patients according to their molecular profile can make for better and faster drug approval decisions

The torrents of data flowing out of cancer research and treatment are yielding fresh insight into the disease

In the past couple of months, three people have told me that they or someone they love has cancer. Fortunately in each case, the tumors were caught early and some combination of surgery and radiation was all the treatment that was likely to be needed.

By releasing the brakes that tumor cells place on the immune system, researchers are developing a new generation of more powerful treatments against malignancy

A new drug combination jump-starts the body’s ability to fight cancer

Such squeezing can close blood vessels and impair the effectiveness of anticancer drugs

Cells and a stiff material called the matrix can squeeze blood vessels in tumors and thus block delivery of cancer-fighting drugs to malignant cells. Now researchers may have a way to reopen vessels and restore the drugs' power

Rakesh K. Jain, director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology in the radiation oncology department of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, talks about his article in the February issue of Scientific American about interfering with extracellular matrix as a way to increase the efficacy of cancer therapy 

 

Researchers have uncovered processes that make cancer even more complicated than they thought it was

In 2000, Robert Weinberg and Douglas Hanahan published a review article in the journal Cell titled “The Hallmarks of Cancer“. It was a seminal paper in every sense of the word; downloaded 20,000 times a year between 2004 and 2007, with over 15,000 citations in other research papers.

The FDA recently okayed the first therapeutic cancer vaccine, and other drugs that enlist the immune system against tumors are under study

A presidential panel warns about human exposure to carcinogens