From Trazy's Flickr Photostream - you can see it here. He does some awesome macro shots of various biology related subjects.
This one is a "monster" culture cell - a huge mutant with two nuclei and one centrosome. A normal cell can be seen at the lower right.
There has been a lot of hype and noise surrounding Steve Jobs' appearance at the WWDC conference and not just because of the new iPhone launch either. His gaunt appearance started a furore amongst the tech analysts and journalists as to how his health was, it was material they claimed.
Thus the setting was established for a interesting battle over someone's privacy and control versus the media herd wanting 'honesty'. Yet, Jobs has been very honest up front - his surgery for early stage pancreatic cancer is well known, no more need be said it's a private matter after that.
The same journalists who praise research and information about stocks should practice what they preach and check out pancreatic cancer, it's all in the public domain. Fifteen minutes spent researching and reading about the topic would tell them all they need to know, without the rather distasteful and rather slimey hounding that is going on at present. Perhaps it's laziness, but sometimes I'm surprised that people who claim to be experts in one area cannot be bothered to research another in the public domain. It makes you wonder what their motives are, especially in the middle of a new product launch for the 3G iPhone.
Take another recent example, Prof Randy Pausch, who sadly died this week from pancreatic cancer. Late last year he gave an inspirational lecture at Carnegie Mellon University but made it clear up front what he wanted to talk about and what was off limits, ie his cancer and his family. His boundaries, like Jobs, on privacy were clear just as the initial medical condition was in both situations. After that, it's nobody's business, you can make your own judgements and act accordingly.
This issue is not about control or honesty, it's about money and greed for the investors. A little bit of research goes a long way, even the analysts will tell a novice investor that, so it cuts both ways.
We also have to remember that the media prey on negative news and 'noise' to generate interest and readership. You don't see much cheerful or good news do you? It's negative and fearful. Good news doesn't sell. Sadly.
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In 2005, the importance of KRAS mutations in the development of resistance to treatment with gefitinib (Iressa) and erlotinib (Tarceva) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were first reported by Pao and colleagues.
The same year, another study (Moroni et al., ) assessed the relationship between epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene copy number, and KRAS and BRAF mutations as biomarkers of response to EGFR-targeted monoclonal antibodies for metastatic colorectal cancer.
The study found that in patients treated with cetuximab (Erbitux) or panitumumab (Vectibix), a correlation existed between clinical response and tumour EGFR copy number, and that KRAS or BRAF mutations occur mainly in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer resistant to treatment with these drugs.
Subsequent studies confirmed the association of KRAS mutations and resistance with such compelling evidence that led to the approval of panitumumab in Europe for the treatment of KRAS wild-type only metastatic colorectal cancer. As for EGFR copy number, later studies also confirmed an association with clinical outcome.
In a recent article, Moroni et al., conceded that the new challenge in metastatic colorectal cancer is that EGFR FISH pattern is often not homogeneous and has variable ratios, which makes the scoring of EGFR signals and defining the EGFR pattern by FISH difficult. Standardisation of methods is, therefore, needed to reach better reproducibility and optimum sensitivity.
As the authors explained, "From a clinical point of view, we can risk treating a non-responsive patient, but we cannot risk not treating a potentially responsive one."
New results on genetic techniques that are helping doctors diagnose and treat lung cancer were released today at the 1st European Lung Cancer Conference jointly organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) in Geneva, Switzerland.
In one report (Abstract No. 81O; 25th April), Israeli researchers from Rosetta Genomics, a biotechnology company developing microRNA-based technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, described a test that may help make crucial distinctions between types of lung cancer. They demonstrated that the method can accurately distinguish between squamous and non-squamous forms of non-small-cell lung cancer, based on the levels of different microRNA molecules found in tissue samples.
MicroRNAs are short RNA molecules that regulate many cancer-related processes. Recently, the launch of new targeted therapies for non-squamous, non-small-cell lung cancer underlines the importance of accurate, objective diagnosis has taken center stage. The ability of physicians to accurately differentiate squamous from non-squamous NSCLC may be used as important treatment guide. For example, some treatments for non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer can be deadly or ineffective in patients with the squamous form of the disease. Researchers expect the test to be approved for use during 2008.
In another report (Abstract No. 106PD; 25th April), Italian researchers showed that genetic analysis can help identify patients who are at high risk of relapse after surgery to remove lung cancer. The 3 gene signature may allow oncologists to classify patients with stage I non-small-cell lung cancer who underwent curative surgical resection in high or low risk molecular category, beyond conventional predictors and decide which appropriate treatments they should receive.
The test includes the gene LCK, which is an important marker of immune cell anticancer activity, DUSP-6 which regulates a signaling pathway involved in cancer spread, and ERCC1, which is thought to be a significant prognostic and therapeutic biomarker in non-small-cell lung cancer. These findings mean that we can potentially improve not only the prognostic stratification of patients, but also the choice of the more appropriate adjuvant drug after surgery, i.e. which patients will benefit most.
Source: ESMO
Biopsy results can be ambiguous: sometimes they can be negative simply because there are too few malignant cells in the sample to be detected - not because all trace of disease has gone. Researchers from the University of New Mexico and the company Senior Scientific, both in Albuquerque, have devised a solution that harnesses the power of magnetic attraction.
The idea is to use magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles encased in a biocompatible material. These in turn can be coated with antibodies that bind to chemicals found only in cancerous cells. When injected into the body, thousands of the particles stick to cancer cells, turning them into miniature magnets. The cells can then be drawn towards magnets encased in the tip of a biopsy needle (Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol 52, p 4009).
A mathematical model of the system confirmed that significant numbers of cancer cells, laden with nanoparticles, could be attracted to a needle within two or three minutes. In the lab, the researchers showed that a magnetised needle could attract leukemia cells surrounded by nanoparticles and suspended in blood or other synthetic materials designed to mimic bodily fluids. Nanoparticles have been used before to destroy diseased cells, but this was the first time they actually retrieved cells.
More recently, researchers have been wondering if cancer treatments be enhanced by something as simple as a magnet. A promising way to tackle some diseases is to deliver cells with modified genes to diseased tissue. Getting enough of the modified cells to the affected area can be tricky.
Claire Lewis and colleagues from the University of Sheffield inserted magnetic nanoparticles, as well as cancer-fighting genes, into monocytes, the white blood cells commonly used in gene therapy, and injected them into mice with tumours. A magnet placed above the tumour caused the cancer-fighting monocytes to congregate there (Source: Gene Therapy, DOI: 10.1038/gt.2008.57).
