Here at OncoBites, a team of cancer professionals and advocates has gathered to share cutting-edge research with a non-specialist audience. We understand that jargon and isolated professional communities have made science feel inaccessible to most people, even people considering the field. In addition, paywalls on articles can make trying to investigate topics alone a challenge.... Continue Reading →
Self-destructive Cancer: Tricking Tumors Into Targeting Themselves
Reading time: 3 minutes Aya Elmeligy When you think of cancer treatment you might think of aggressive chemotherapy, intense radiation, and endless drugs which all carry the risk of damaging healthy cells in addition to the cancerous ones. But ultimately, it is all worth it to hear the words “You are cancer free!”. But what... Continue Reading →
Tumor-on-a-chip: A Better Method for Drug Discovery?
Reading time: 7 minutes Nayela Chowdhury Conventional 2D and 3D models of cancer have widely been utilized in pre-clinical drug development; however, neither of the platforms mimics the dynamic interactions that occur in living tumors. In vivo studies (for example, in small animal models) have been central in translational cancer research and have contributed largely... Continue Reading →
‘Ubiquitous’ Ubiquitination Pathway and Cancer
Reading time: 4 minutes Deepika Jayaprakash What is common to eukaryotic organisms like animals, plants, fungi, and unicellular organisms? Ubiquitous Ubiquitin! Ubiquitin (ub) is a small protein found in all eukaryotes that when attached to its target protein can bring about a myriad of cellular processes. The first observed effect of ubiquitination was degradation of... Continue Reading →
Non-small cell lung cancer and immunotherapy
Reading time: 4 minutes Indiwari Gopallawa Cancer is the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases in the United States and has a major impact on society. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer type and is associated with lower survival rates and higher cancer-related deaths, accounting for 25% of all cancer-related deaths... Continue Reading →
3D Screening of Compounds for Cancer Therapy
Reading time: 4 minutes Sydney Scatigno Over the last couple of decades, cancer research has made strides in improving the pre-clinical assessment of novel compounds. Compound screening, the process of assessing new compounds for efficacy, across various cell lines is an important step in finding the optimal drug candidate downstream in the drug development process.... Continue Reading →
CAR-Macrophages: A New Take on an Immunotherapy Classic
Colette Bilynsky CAR-T cell therapy is widely available in the United States, with 6 FDA-approved formulations, and has been previously discussed on Oncobites. However, a new clinical trial using the CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) technology is underway, but using macrophages instead of T-Cells in the hope of treating more types of cancer. But let’s take... Continue Reading →
Artificial Intelligence: A Threat to Us or to Cancer?
Reading time: 5 minutes Aya Elmeligy Introduction Cancer is a constantly evolving illness. This infamous disease crosses everyone’s mind, whether through fear of developing it or worry of never being rid of it. The key to overcoming this is early diagnosis and more effective treatments that are personalized to the patient. Literature regarding the average... Continue Reading →
Understanding Tumor Cell Evolution to Target Metastasis
Reading time: 4 minutes Megan Majocha Breast cancer is the most common cancer and it is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States1. Women with breast cancer have a 5-year survival rate of 99% if the tumor remains localized in the breast, but survival drops to 30% if women... Continue Reading →
Can the Bacteria in Our Gut Cause Liver Cancer?
Reading time: 4 minutes Hannah Young Tiny microscopic bacterial communities that live within and on us are known as the human microbiome. Research linking the human microbiome to cancer has skyrocketed in the last two decades and has largely focused on the relationship between the microbiome of the digestive tract with stomach and intestinal cancer.... Continue Reading →
Can Our Immune System be Directed to Kill Cancer Cells? Limitations and Solutions
Reading time: 4 minutes Hema Saranya Ilamathi Beep! Beep! There goes the metal scanner in the airport. Oops! I realized that I forgot to take out the key chain from my pocket. Similar to the metal detection system, our body has a highly vigilant surveillance system called immune cells that constantly scan for the presence... Continue Reading →
Cancer Predisposition Syndromes: Diagnosis and Management
Reading time: 5 minutes Ryan Ripsman For most people, developing cancer is the result of bad luck. For people with cancer predisposition syndromes cancer can be an almost guaranteed part of life. Cancer predisposition syndromes encompass a wide variety of disorders that all increase a person’s likelihood of developing cancer. There are many different... Continue Reading →
Representation in the Information Age: A Prostate Cancer Story
Reading time: 5 minutes Anthony Tao In a world polarized by ethnopolitical tensions, we may be comforted to think of science as a stonewall against ethnic and social biases ‒ to imagine that scientific data speaks with an impartial voice. However, this is far from the case. The history of modern science is plagued with... Continue Reading →
How Herbal and Dietary Supplements Affect Oncologic Drugs
Reading time: 5 minutes Susan Egbert Statistics show that about 80 percent of the world’s population consume herbal/dietary supplements without specific recommendations to take them1, with some cancer patients using herbal/dietary supplements to alleviate their symptoms (e.g. pain, nausea, etc),2,3,4,5. Generally, patients consider herbal/dietary supplements “safe” since they are “natural,” however, herb-drug interactions (HDI) (e.g.... Continue Reading →
Ion Channels in T cells— Channeling a New Research Era?
Reading time: 5 minutes Christina Niavi Our human body has amazing defense mechanisms. The organism defense is like the army, with a first line of defense against any kind of threat and, a second defense, more specialized to each threat. Specialized defense soldiers, called CD8 T cells, are equipped with killing machineries to eradicate tumors... Continue Reading →
Reverse Vaccinology for Cancer-Causing Viruses
Reading time: 7 minutes Felicites Rapon Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the causative agent of hepatitis C, an infectious disease of the liver causing inflammation and necrosis. HCV infection can be either acute (which can be cleared without any medicines) or chronic. The latter can be due to environmental factors such as alcohol usage but... Continue Reading →
Cancer Neuroscience: A New Field
Reading time: 6 minutes Ana Isabel Castillo Orozco "Cancer Neuroscience": This is the name given to a novel and exciting field that aims to study the complex interactions between the nervous system and cancer development. In recent years, increasing evidence has come to light that neuronal activity is crucial in regulating cancer initiation and progression.... Continue Reading →
Transmissible Tumors in Tasmanian Devils
Reading time: 3 minutes Hannah Young Cancer is generally thought to be a disease that develops from one cell that eventually divides and becomes a tumor within an individual; how this cell becomes cancerous differs depending on the initiating event. While some cancers are initiated through a series of mutations in tumor suppressors or oncogenes,... Continue Reading →
What’s the Link Between Ultra-Processed Foods and Colon Cancer?
Reading time: 4 minutes Deanna MacNeil Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignancy in the US, and the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Though the incidence in the US is declining rapidly overall, the increased incidence of early-onset colorectal cancers is a concerning trend. Although the reasons for this increase remain unknown,... Continue Reading →
The Cancer Genome Atlas: What If We Knew of All the Mutations That Cause Cancer?
Reading time: 4 minutes Sneha Das We are our genomes! Our genome is the DNA comprising roughly 3 billion genetic letters, called bases, that appear in a specific order to make us humans. The DNA encodes messages to make proteins and other biomolecules that work in concert to perform important bodily functions. But sometimes this... Continue Reading →
Bacterial Fortification for Cancer Therapeutics
Reading time: 3 minutes Bhavuk Garg Cancer treatment options have undergone multiple strategic shifts over the course of the last century starting with resection and moving to chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and chemical inhibitors. Major challenges faced by many therapeutics are adverse toxic reactions inflicted on the patients and the development of therapeutic resistance due to high... Continue Reading →
Why do we need mice models in the study of cancer?
Namrata Nilavar Reading time: 5 minutes During the COVID-19 pandemic, many researchers have ‘simulated’ the progression of the pandemic, which often involves researchers using a computer program that allows them to understand how the pandemic might pan out. These programs can help us predict ‘real-world’ scenarios. Similarly, we can simulate or imitate the progression of... Continue Reading →
A Dash of Turmeric: The Secret Ingredient for Cancer Treatment?
Reading time: 4 minutes Melanie Padalino “Do you have any spices?” my friend Elizabeth asked while cooking an omelet in my kitchen. “Yep, there should be a whole bunch in the cabinet” I replied. Without hesitation, she went straight for the little glass jar of ground turmeric, an ancient spice known for its bright orange... Continue Reading →
Cancer Cells Can Exploit Koala-like Grips to Metastasize
Reading time: 5 minutes Emily Chan During a holiday weekend, I had the chance to see one of the most beloved animals at my local zoo: the koala. Contrary to their adorable exterior, koalas boast strong arms and legs that hook around tree branches, allowing them to scale large eucalyptus trees. Recently, researchers at Institut... Continue Reading →
Exercise and Antitumor Immunity in Pancreatic Cancer
Reading time: 3 minutes Aishat Motolani We live in an era of catchy headlines. I gasp every time I read a health headline on mainstream news networks. Some thumbnails read thus, “red wine could increase your lifespan,” or “naps are linked to X type of disease.” Naps? I often remark in confusion. I love taking... Continue Reading →
Peering Into the Future: Where Contact Lenses May Detect Cancer
Reading time: 7 minutes Michael Marand In short-distance track competitions, the winner of a race is largely determined by how well the runners take off from the starting blocks. With the athletes only narrowly separated by their top speeds, the initial difficulty of shifting from an immobile crouch to rapid acceleration is an art that... Continue Reading →
A Standing Ovation! Results From DESTINY-Breast04 trial in Breast Cancer
Reading time: 5 minutes Patty Spears The applause was thunderous and traveled like a wave across the large auditorium at the end of a 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting Plenary Session talk. It did not stop. The audience stood and kept applauding and reveling in the positive results of a clinical... Continue Reading →
One size Does Not Fit All in Cancer Treatment: The Role of Precision Medicine
Reading time: 4 minutes Ifeoluwa Oyelade Imagine a scenario where an individual is diagnosed with a type of cancer, and physicians only need to prescribe a treatment that is specific and optimized to that individual and the type of cancer, with little or no undesirable side effects. That is the goal of precision medicine in... Continue Reading →
Mass Spectrometry Advances in Oncology
Reading time: 5 minutes Susan Egbert As technology has been advancing exponentially over the years, more efficient diagnostic tools have been developed for cancer detection. Recent studies1,2,3 have shown the need for this advancement, as current diagnostic tools are still not adequate enough to detect cancer. One of the new tools that have been advancing,... Continue Reading →
Membrane Tension: A Costume That Turns Cells Into Metastatic Monsters
Reading time: 5 minutes Emily Chan With Halloween soon approaching, children and adults everywhere are preparing to disguise themselves in costumes to transform into someone or something else. Unlike the disguises we wear once a year, cells can make continuous strides to transform into malignant cells that metastasize to other areas of the body. Cancer... Continue Reading →
How Cancer Research Influenced the World’s Fastest Vaccine
Reading time: 4 minutes Jacqueline Mann In December 2020, less than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to prevent COVID-19. These vaccines work differently from traditional immunizations: they contain a specific sequence of messenger RNA (mRNA) that... Continue Reading →
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