(Posted: 07/05/2013) - In a discovery that sheds new light on the aggressiveness of certain breast cancers, Whitehead Institute and MIT researchers have identified a transcription factor, known as ZEB1, that is capable of converting non-aggressive basal-type cancer cells into highly malignant, tumor-forming cancer stem cells (CSCs). Intriguingly, luminal breast cancer cells, which are associated with a much better clinical prognosis, carry this gene in a state in which it seems to be permanently shut down. MIT is home to the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

(Posted: 07/05/2013) - Scientists have tracked down and quantified the diverse origins of cells that drive fibrosis, the incurable, runaway wound-healing that scars and ultimately destroys organs such as the lungs, liver and kidneys. Findings from research conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and continued at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are reported in an advance online publication at Nature Medicine on June 30. The researchers point out that fibrosis is a precursor for development of cancer.

(Posted: 07/01/2013) - Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University’s Kimmel Cancer Center have discovered that decorin, a naturally occurring protein that circulates in the blood, acts as a potent inhibitor of tumor growth modulating the tumor microenvironment. The study, published June 24 online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests it may be possible to harness the power of this naturally occurring anticancer agent as a way to treat cancer, including metastases.

(Posted: 07/01/2013) - A biomarker reflecting expression levels of two genes in tumor tissue may be able to predict which women treated for estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer should receive a second estrogen-blocking medication after completing tamoxifen treatment. In their report being published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center (a component of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) describe finding that the HOXB13/IL17BR ratio can indicate which women are at risk for cancer recurrence after tamoxifen and which are most likely to benefit from continuing treatment with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole (Femara).

(Posted: 06/26/2013) - For men with a low risk of dying from their prostate cancer, advanced treatment options may offer little to no benefit, yet more and more patients are opting for these procedures. A new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center examined Medicare data between 2004 and 2009 for men with prostate cancer whose disease was low-risk or those who were at a high risk to die from other causes. The researchers found that these men increasingly underwent advanced treatment options, such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy and robotic prostatectomy.

(Posted: 06/26/2013) - Humans and their pet dogs are close, so close that they both develop a type of cancer called diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. In humans it’s the most common lymphoma subtype while in dogs, it’s one of the most common cancers in veterinary oncology. A team of scientists from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Duke University have conducted one of the first studies to directly compare canine and human B-cell lymphoma by examining molecular similarities and differences between the two species. The researchers say dogs are good models to study because they can examine shared risk factors with humans.

(Posted: 06/26/2013) - Researchers at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered a promising new way to treat a rare and aggressive blood cancer most commonly found in people infected with HIV. The USC team shows that a class of drugs called BET bromodomain inhibitors effectively targets primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a type of cancer for which those drugs were not expected to be effective.

(Posted: 06/24/2013) - In the past year a group of synthetic proteins called CRISPR-Cas RNA-guided nucleases (RGNs) have generated great excitement in the scientific community as gene-editing tools. Exploiting a method that some bacteria use to combat viruses and other pathogens, CRISPR-Cas RGNs can cut through DNA strands at specific sites, allowing the insertion of new genetic material. However, a team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (a component of the Dana-Farber Cancer Research Institute) has found a significant limitation to the use of CRISPR-Cas RGNs, production of unwanted DNA mutations at sites other than the desired target.

(Posted: 06/21/2013) - Scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (home to the Abramson Cancer Center) have used stem-cell technology to create a research cell line from a patient with advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This first-of-its-kind human-cell model of pancreatic cancer progression was published in Cell Reports.

(Posted: 06/21/2013) - Bacterial DNA may integrate into the human genome more readily in tumors than in normal human tissue, according to a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences and the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center. Researchers analyzed genomic sequencing data available from the Human Genome Project, the 1,000 Genomes Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). They considered the phenomenon of lateral gene transfer (LGT), the transmission of genetic material between organisms in the absence of sex.