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 →
A Profile of Electric Fields in Cancer Therapeutics
Reading time: 5 minutes Michael Marand For decades, cancer therapy has been dominated by surgical resection, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. But each of these methods comes with its limitations. Surgery fails when there are scattered, small bits of tumor that escape to other areas of the body, called metastases. Radiation therapy fails when said metastases... Continue Reading →
DNA G-Quadruplexes: Special Secondary Structures with Surprising Anticancer Implications
Reading time: 5 minutes Jessica Desamero From the start, our mission here at OncoBites has been to share the complicated nature of cancer with our readers and to shed light on breakthroughs in understanding and treating the disease. One of our biggest messages has been that “cancer” is really a family of different but related... Continue Reading →
Tomosynthesis: The Latest in Breast Cancer Imaging
Reading time: 4 minutes Taylor A. Johnson Here at OncoBites, we have covered multiple advancements in the imaging and diagnosis of cancer. These have included isotonic labeling to detect the cancer progression, liquid biopsies for uncovering tumor profiles, and even artificial intelligence for interpreting images. In addition, several aspects of breast cancer, ranging from new... Continue Reading →
Listen to me!
When patients volunteer to participate in a clinical trial, their voices should be heard. Reading time: 7 minutes Patty Spears A recent study (Nyrop et. al. 2019) looked at how clinicians and patients reported numbness and tingling in the patient’s hands and feet (peripheral neuropathy) after getting chemotherapy for breast cancer. They call this chemotherapy... Continue Reading →
Two New Cancer-Fighting Compounds, Brought to You by Mushrooms
Reading time: 3 minutes Kedar Puvar At first glance, mushrooms, being immobile and nutritious, seem to be rather unassuming. Why, then, would you want to turn to mushrooms of all things as a source of new medicines? It turns out that they make up for their evolutionary weaknesses with a powerful toolbox of molecular defenses... Continue Reading →
Sniffing out Cancer
Reading time: 4 minutes Rachel Cherney Early cancer detection is critical for increasing patient survivability; however, current methods for early detection are costly and often inaccurate. It is of great importance to find other, more cost effective and accurate methods for early cancer detection, and to do this, we may need to turn to new... Continue Reading →
The Rundown on Roundup: A Cancer-Causing Weedkiller?
Reading time: 4 minutes Ariana Cardillo If you’ve been to the Midwest, it’s hard to miss the endless fields dedicated to the agriculture industry. If you live there, you are accustomed to the growing cycles and crop rotations of the fields. You probably are even desensitized to the massive machinery used to maintain these crops.... Continue Reading →
Pembrolizumab – the miraculous drug
Reading time: 5 minutes Varshit Dusad A cancer diagnosis is generally perceived to be a death sentence. With millions of people dying of cancer every year, this does not seem to be at all outrageous. However, researchers all over the world, in academia and industry alike, have been relentlessly pursuing novel therapies and drugs to... Continue Reading →
Malignant Costs of Cancer Care
Reading time: 6 minutes Nisitha Sengottuvel So far, a lot of the articles we have been discussing here on Oncobites have been revolving around bench research regarding cancer biology and therapeutics. On the public health side of cancer care, there are a lot of emerging fields: one of which investigates the economic burden of cancer... Continue Reading →
Fasting Away Tumors (With a Little Help From Metformin)
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti The world of drug discovery is a frustrating, delicate world. Scientists spend years working on fine-tuning molecules to improve their function, make them safer, or even just make them easier to give to patients. We have a catalog of drugs that work on single, specific proteins only found in... Continue Reading →
Colorectal cancer is on the rise in adults < 50 years old
Reading time: 4 minutes Morgan McSweeney Note: Throughout this article, I will use phrases such as "patients with overweight/obesity" instead of "overweight/obese patients." This is because the field is trying to move away from using disease states as descriptors. Another example would be a preference for saying "patients with diabetes" instead of "diabetics." I know... Continue Reading →
Searching for the Switch: How Cancer Cells Become Drug-Resistant
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti Picture this: You walk into a strange room. Maybe you’re at a friend’s house, or the restroom in a new coffee shop, or a hotel room. It’s dark, and you can’t see, but no matter where you put your hand, you just can’t find the light switch. You know... Continue Reading →
It takes two brakes to stop cancer?
Reading time: 4 minutes Manisit Das In the past, we have discussed checkpoint inhibitors - therapies that block communication between cancer and immune cells, preventing cancer cells from evading the immune system. Dr. James Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018 for their pioneering work in cancer immunotherapy... Continue Reading →
The Rehabilitation of Thalidomide
Reading time: 4 minutes You may have heard of the infamous thalidomide, a morning sickness drug that was patented in the 1950s. Its potent anti-nausea effects made it ideal as a remedy for morning sickness in pregnant women and thalidomide was sold in over 40 countries, going as far as to be made available over... Continue Reading →
Natural Products for cancer research
Reading time: 3 minutes Bekah Schulz Natural products, or compounds isolated from plants/microorganisms, have been used as herbal medicines throughout human history. These compounds have many measurable effects. In fact, ⅓ of the top selling pharmaceuticals are natural products or their derivatives. Many antibiotics were discovered from screening these compounds and recently have shown efficacy... Continue Reading →
Overcoming the Limitations of CAR-T Therapy: Cytokine Storm
Reading time: 3 minutes Alex S. Woodell A warm breeze whips by as you notice a peculiar set of clouds forming in the distance. These cumulus clouds are tall with bumpy protrusions that flatten out near the top to form a silhouette of a giant anvil. As condensation builds in these behemoths, the bright sunlight... Continue Reading →
Cancer and Heredity! Watch out for your bloodline
Reading time: 5 minutes Varshit Dusad There is no denying that cancer is a genetic disease and genetics is hereditary. So is cancer hereditary as well? Unfortunately, the answer is yes! If your ancestors had cancer, you have a higher risk to get cancer than someone who does not have cancer in their family history... Continue Reading →
Cancer cells use an exosome “message in a bottle” to turn off the immune system
Reading time: 4 minutes Morgan McSweeney As we have written about before, cancer immunotherapy aims to make use of the body’s own immune cells to attack cancer cells, thereby preventing their continued growth. However, the body has a system of checks and balances in place to make sure that the immune system does not accidentally... Continue Reading →
Evolution of chemotherapy: A look back in time
Reading time: 5 minutes Payal Yokota Chemotherapy (chemo) can be prescribed alone and in combination with other therapies such as surgery, radiation, and immunotherapies (ie. vaccines, checkpoint blockade, etc). Since its discovery, the chemo field has greatly advanced, both in its development and ability to treat cancers. While surgery and radiation act locally to remove... Continue Reading →
Players in Cancer Metastasis: Part Two
Reading time: 4 minutes Shaye Hagler For those of you whose lives have been impacted by cancer, you might have heard of the term “metastasis.” We call cancer metastatic when it breaks off from the initial tumor and travels to other organs. You might also have heard it being referred to before as “stage 4... Continue Reading →
Too Much Potassium Might Be Poisoning Your Anti-Tumor Immunity
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti Cancer immunotherapy has been a very hot topic here at OncoBites (because it’s a hot topic right now among cancer researchers too), but let me be super clear ⎯ it is COMPLICATED. Your immune system is balanced extremely delicately to avoid sending you into shock each time you are... Continue Reading →
Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer: Did we figure out the warning signs?
Reading time: 3 minutes Manisit Das Pancreatic Cancer remains one of the few cancers against which we haven’t found a treatment that offers long-term benefit. Currently, less than one in ten patients will survive five years past the point of diagnosis. Like any other cancer, early diagnosis can improve treatment options and patient survivability. However,... Continue Reading →
Going on the offense: PROTACs as cancer therapy
Reading time: 3 minutes Kedar Puvar Diseases are typically caused by defective or malicious proteins. Traditionally, treatments for these diseases use a strategy of inhibition - use a small molecule that can block the offending protein from carrying out its function and thereby, bring things back to normal. But what if we went one step... Continue Reading →
Human Organ on a Chip: A Better Model for Drug Development?
Reading time: 5 minutes Kaye Alcedo Even before President Nixon’s declaration of the “war on cancer” in 1971, the journey towards a cure was nothing but a rollercoaster ride. Many promising cancer drugs are tested in human clinical trials but ultimately fail primarily because they demonstrate inadequate efficacy or safety, costing billions of dollars, increasing... Continue Reading →
Can exercise prevent cancer recurrence?
Reading time: 3 minutes Bekah Schulz It is well accepted that exercise is beneficial for human health and boosts overall energy level. However, the questions remains: can exercise be used as a cancer therapy? Research is indicating that it can. Over the past 20 years, studies have demonstrated that exercise decreases the risk of recurrence... Continue Reading →
Towards Personalized Cancer Medicine for All
Reading time: 6 minutes Rachel Cherney Modern medicine has saved millions of lives, but with a little improvement, it could save even more. Our current medical practices rely on medical professionals reacting to a diagnosis, treating patients after they may be or already are ill. We are increasingly recognizing the necessity of being proactive in... Continue Reading →
Overcoming the Limitations of CAR-T Therapy: Burnout
Reading time: 4 minutes Alex S. Woodell Marathon runners are an interesting breed. In order to complete the grueling 26.2 mile circuit, they must push their mental and physical boundaries to the limit. Seasoned runners possess great strength, focus, resilience, and determination. Each of these qualities is a testament to the intense training schedules they... Continue Reading →
Maternal Cancer and its Impact on Infants
Reading time: 4 minutes Varshit Dusad Cancer by no stretch of the imagination is a rare disease. It affects a significant population worldwide, and every year millions of dollar are spent investigating the causes of cancer and searching for a potential cure. However, a rarely discussed topic is the adverse impact on the health of... Continue Reading →
Robots are coming for your job (if you are a radiologist)
Reading time: 4 minutes Morgan McSweeney What can humans do better than robots? For most of history, the answer to that question has been.. everything. However, the balance of power is rapidly shifting away from warm, fleshy, humans toward cold, calculating, processing power. Did you know that a few years ago, an artificial intelligence (AI)... Continue Reading →
Estrogen on the Brain: How Hormones Might Be Increasing Brain Metastasis
Reading time: 3 minutes Sara Musetti One of the realities of cancer is that the primary tumor is rarely the cause of issues; usually, mortality and complications come from tumor cells spreading throughout the body and forming new tumors, a process called metastasis. For most cancers, the primary tumor can be surgically removed, but once... Continue Reading →
