Reading time: 3 minutes Ifeoluwa Oyelade One of the most impactful breakthroughs in cancer research would be to completely eradicate all cancer cells in the body upon treatment, thereby preventing possible cases of cancer relapse. However, the ability of tumor cells to move out of their primary sites to reside in different organs in the... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Michael Marand From a young age, we are taught to protect ourselves from germs. From scrubbing our teeth to washing our hands, the hygienic routines we learned as kids help us steer clear of harmful single-celled organisms. And for good reason – research suggests bacterial infection is a significant risk factor... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Jessica Desamero Breastfeeding is essential for a baby’s first few months and can even reduce a mother’s risk of breast cancer. The exact cause is unclear, but it could be due to the associated hormonal changes that delay the mother’s menstrual cycles. This delay reduces the mother’s lifetime exposure to menstrual... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Mahrukh Fatima Did you know that some animals, like salamanders and axolotls, can regenerate their limbs? They have this spectacular ability due to a small and rare subset of primitive cells called stem cells. These cells have the ability to differentiate into many different types of specialized cells from brain cells... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Kate Secombe You may have read previously on OncoBites about immunotherapies, and the great promise they hold in treating a wide range of cancers. Commonly used immunotherapies include checkpoint inhibitors such as PD-1 or CTLA-4 inhibitors. Here I will be looking at an emerging subset of immunotherapies known as immune agonist... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Bhavuk Garg Bone marrow is soft trabecular tissue nourished by an intensive network of blood vessels. This tissue is found in axial and leg bones of the body. Bone marrow is primarily made up of two types: red bone marrow and yellow bone marrow. Red bone marrow contains stem cells and... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Keighley Reisenauer One of the “hot button” topics right now in the cancer therapeutics industry is precision medicine. This is a practice whereby a tumor’s genetics, immune landscape, and biomarkers are compiled and evaluated holistically in order to more accurately make treatment decisions. Breast cancer especially has benefited from the targeted... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Leandro de Lima Coutinho While it would be miraculous to have a Panacea (or Elixir of Life) that would cure all diseases and prolong life, it took alchemists in the Harry Potter universe to create one. Taking a step away from fiction, it would still be incredible to have one drug... Continue Reading →
Vicky Tan Reading time: 3 minutes Whilst the current attention of many healthcare workers is devoted to battling COVID-19, another epidemic is quietly brewing in the background. Dakota Stephenson is a 15-year old from Sydney, Australia, who was recently admitted into an intensive care unit for three days as her lungs were filling up with... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Aishat Motolani Cancer is a heterogeneous genetic disease notorious for dodging several bullets of treatments. Tumors can develop in different organs and tissues of the body. As a result, there are over 100 types of cancers according to the National Cancer Institute. One of the current approaches pursued to solve cancer... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Christina Snyder Cancer is a massive problem that affects almost 2 million new people each year in the U.S. alone. But what if you could drastically decrease your risk for cancer later in life simply by changing your diet? While, unfortunately, there is no single magical fruit that can prevent cancer,... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Patty Spears There are many barriers keeping patients out of clinical trials, even if they want to join the clinical trial. There are multiple steps along the way and each step is a hurdle for patients. A patient must first have physical access to the trial (structural barrier). For example, I... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Leandro de Lima Coutinho It may seem a bit naive to associate cancer with an imaginary creature that is large, ugly, frightening, and often destructive. However, to understand why we would consider cancer as a monster, we need to first revive a creature from Greek mythology and then recall the etymology... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Kate Secombe Most cancer treatments can cause side effects during or beyond treatment. While some of these side effects will not be bothersome to a person going through treatment, others may be more painful, annoying, or indicative of a problem that requires medical attention. Previous research has shown that clinicians tend... Continue Reading →
Sohini Basu Roy Reading time: 3 minutes Every year 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections cases occur in the U.S. and more than 35,000 people die due to bacterial infection But one of the main challenges is a consequence resulting from the infection: weakened immune system. This leads to immunodeficiency and thus patients become more prone to... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Aishat Motolani Just as bulldozers work to demolish dilapidated buildings or clear weeds on farmlands, PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras (PROTACs) are small bifunctional molecules designed to degrade proteins that are present in excess in diseased conditions. In cancer, these specific proteins are called oncoproteins. Oncoproteins are capable of transforming a normal cell... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Mahrukh Fatima Our bodies are quite spectacular and are well-equipped to protect us from most dangers we encounter, both internal and external. The tools our bodies use to protect us against microscopic threats are collectively known as the immune system, and just like tools in a toolbox, the different types of... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Anthony (Tony) Tao Controlling the genes encoded by our DNA has always been a dream in oncology. Just as our healthy cells rely on genes to properly function, cancer cells depend on our genes to thrive and parasitize our bodies. In the late 90s, a powerful technology was developed called RNA... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Ifeoluwa Oyelade It is no news that breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and the highest cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide. According to WHO, in 2020, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer with 685,000 reported mortality. Arguably, the worst news that can be given... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Clare Meernik 84% of children who are diagnosed with cancer today can expect to live for at least 5 years after their diagnosis. Though the prognosis is favorable for the majority of children--and much improved from a 5-year survival rate of 58% in the mid-1970s--the long-term adverse effects of some cancer... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Michael Marand The term cancer research may invoke images of scientists with grand ideas mixing this or that until the next groundbreaking treatment avenue is uncovered. Indeed, discovering new therapeutic approaches has been an important factor in the progress made in the cancer research sphere. However, it is perhaps even more... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Nisitha Sengottuvel Can robots accomplish the work of doctors? Some aspects of medicine may be better left to technology: one example includes the reading of mammograms to diagnose breast cancer. Thus far in the history of Oncobites, we have examined various aspects of diagnostics such as molecular vibrations, gold nanoparticles, biomarkers... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 2 minutes Rachel Cherney Nature is magnificent, simply put. It is indispensable, diverse, and more complex than we currently understand. Its diversity ranges from from the Mantis Shrimp, which can see millions of colors as compared to humans, to the Axolotl, which has the remarkable ability to regenerative any of the limbs. However,... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Ifeoluwa Oyelade Pretending to be dead to deceive opponents in fights and strike unexpectedly is a well-known cliche in books and movies. This is an analogy that loosely describes the activities of some dormant tumor cells in cancer treatment. Tumor dormancy has garnered a reasonable amount of buzz in cancer research... Continue Reading →
Keighley Reisenauer Reading time: 3 minutes Think back to 2003, when Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan swapped bodies as mother and daughter in the flick Freaky Friday. While their bodies looked the same, their behaviors changed as each brought their own personality to the other’s lives. Movies love this idea of swapping bodies, brains,... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 6 minutes Kate Gavaghan Being diagnosed with cancer is terrifying, and going through treatment is physically and emotionally challenging. So many patients are justifiably focused on “getting to the end” that they can be a little blindsided by survivorship. It’s not really a return to normal life, or the life one had before... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Suchitra Mitra Majority of cancer associated deaths occur from metastasis, when cells from the primary tumor migrate to a distant site within the body. The migration of cancer cells usually occurs via three routes — direct invasion of surrounding tissues, the circulatory system (ie, blood), and the lymphatic system. Recent developments... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Aileen I Fernandez Cancer health disparities are prevalent in the United States and are defined as “adverse differences between certain population groups in cancer measures”. It is well known that there are variations in cancer burden associated with racial/ethnic identity and that this is due to many factors. Among these are... Continue Reading →
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes Darshak Bhatt Wouldn’t it be nice if a cancer patient was given therapy only if it was going to work? Although it seems like a no-brainer, many patients undergo therapy without knowing how good the chances are for a successful outcome. Reasons for this uncertainty depend on the type and... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 7 minutes Aishat Motolani You have most likely heard of several branded FDA-approved drugs during TV commercials and sighed, “Ah! not again with this rhythmic list of symptoms.” Well, some of those symptoms may have included immune-related adverse events (IRAEs). iRAEs are composed of an array of side effects that are reminiscent of... Continue Reading →
OncoBites 