NanomedicineCenter.com

Another potential biomarker for lung cancer discovered

Scientists from Boston Univeristy have found that a class of molecule called microRNA regulate the gene expression changes in airway cells that occur with smoking and lung cancer. These findings may lead to a new biomarker for smoking-related lung diseases.

It is estimated that over 1.2 billion people smoke in the world. That brings over 5 million deaths per year. Of course, smoking is a very important factor in lung cancer development, and it’s the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and all around the world. Because of the lack of biomarkers, doctors are unable to detect the lung cancer in early stages of disease — that’s why many patients with lung cancer never recover and eventually die.

“The research we performed suggests that smoking-dependent changes in microRNA expression levels mediate some of the smoking induced gene expression changes in airway epithelium and that microRNAs therefore play a role in the host response to environmental exposures and may contribute to the pathogenesis of smoking-related lung cancer,” said Avrum Spira, MD, one of the authors.

The scientists claim that they hope that microRNA profiles obtained from these cells may serve as relatively non-invasive biomarkers for smoking-related lung diseases.
“These microRNA changes may serve as more robust biomarkers in clinical samples given their role as regulators of multiple mRNAs and their relative resistance to degradation,” said Frank Schembri, MD, one of the authors.

The paper is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The project was funded by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute Grant, National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Grant.

Source: bu.edu

Soft-tissue sarcoma exposed

Scientists at the UC Davis Cancer Center have reported that they have exposed a very rare type of cancer — soft-tissue sarcoma, which is deadly for some patients. It’s been shown that exploring the cancer thoroughly — knowing its size, site, grade and depth is of huge importance for doctors to be able to determine the treatment procedure.

“Soft-tissue sarcomas have been lumped together in the past because they are rare, yet they are still a very heterogeneous group of diseases,” said Robert Canter, who led the research. “Our work shows that in order to improve outcomes we need to think of and treat sarcomas as distinct rather than as just one disease.”

In order to gather as much valuable data as possible, scientists followed over two thousand patients with low-grade soft-tissue sarcoma. They have come to the conclusion that the most prominent patterns of recurrence and death were predicted by tumor site. Patients with small tumors located in an extremity and easily removed with surgery experienced longer term survival. About nine percent of patients, usually those with large tumors in the abdomen, had the worst outcomes, sometimes with recurrences many years after the initial operation.
“The large number of patients in our study made it possible for us to look at the small percentage of patients with low-grade sarcoma who didn’t do very well,” said Canter. “We clearly need to develop more aggressive treatment and long-term follow-up options for patients with certain types of sarcomas.”

After that, scientists did a second study. They followed around 200 patients with an aggressive form of soft-tissue sarcoma, and they’ve constructed a tool that can be used to predict three- to five-year survival based on pre-operative variables.
“Tumor size has consistently been considered a predictor of worse survival, but tumor size alone is not enough to determine the best treatment protocol for every patient. The tool we devised takes into account additional risk factors,” said Canter.

These studies will be the base for future research of soft-tissue sarcomas.

The studies were published in Annals of Surgical Oncology and Clinical Cancer Research, respectively. The whole project was funded by the National Institute of Health.

Source: ucdmc.ucdavis.edu

New technique to manipulate atoms discovered

Researchers from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) in Spain, along with colleagues from all around the world, have discovered a new technique to manipulate atoms.

Devices that make it possible for scientists to visualize and manipulate atoms are called proximity microscopes. There are two types of these microscopes: STM and AFM. The STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope) was developed in 1986 and earned its creators (G. Binning and H. Rohrer) the Nobel prize for physics.
Now, in this study, researchers have developed a new technique which is based on AFM, and which allows them to build stable atomic structures at room temperature.

The methods that already exist aren’t really fully functional — they are based on pushing or pulling atoms from the surface of a material using the tip of the microscope and require very low temperatures. The new technique, however, is based on the controlled interchange of an atom at the tip for a surface atom when the two are close enough. Using the atoms at the tip (that are chemically different to those at the surface) as ink, it is possible to write or draw with the microscope. This interchange process can be repeated in different positions over the surface to form complex structures very efficiently. In particular, this group has written the chemical symbol for silicon Si (which is the chemical element used as ink) on a surface covered with tin atoms.

The new technique significantly reduces the time needed to realize complex atomic structures. What makes it special is that it can even be used in room temperature, unlike previous methods. The method will be of greatest use in material science, nanotechnology and molecular electronics.

The research is published in the journal Science.

Source: uam.es

Scientists found a way to combat cholesterol problems

The holidays are finally over. We’ve enjoyed in all the things that they bring, especially the food. However, all the food that we’ve eaten boosted our blood cholesterol levels all the way to the top. These things seem inevitable, because we, humans, just can’t control ourselves when we eat. We never think of the consequences…

However, scientists from the Northwestern University have come up with a solution — synthetic high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol. It could help combat chronically high cholesterol levels and the deadly heart disease that often results. The synthetic HDL is 18 nanometers in diameter, a size similar to natural HDL.
Scientists developed a synthetic HDL and showed that their nanoparticle version is capable of irreversibly binding cholesterol. It’s completely based on gold nanoparticles.

“We have designed and built a cholesterol sponge. The synthetic HDL features the basics of what a great cholesterol drug should be,” said Chad A. Mirkin, one of the researchers. “Drugs that lower the bad cholesterol, LDL, are available, and you can lower LDL through your diet, but it is difficult to raise the good cholesterol, HDL. I’ve taken niacin to try and raise my HDL, but the side effects are bad so I stopped. We are hopeful that our synthetic HDL will one day help fill this gap in useful therapeutics.”

They started building the synthetic HDL based on a gold nanoparticle as the core. Then they layered on a lipid that attaches to the gold surface, then another lipid and last a protein, called APOA1, the main protein component of naturally occurring HDL.

The details are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Source: northwestern.edu