Sara Musetti When someone says the word “cancer.” it can tie knots in the guts of even the strongest among us. There is no pretending that cancer isn’t a terrifying phenomenon that has touched most of our lives. Very few cancers, however, are able to elicit the chill that brain cancer does, in patients, family... Continue Reading →
Varshit Dusad 'All models are wrong, some are useful!' - George Box The advancement of biological research relies on understanding how the different moving parts interact with each other, forming an integrated system. To better understand a system we often resort to models which help us develop a logical framework of these interactions, offering us... Continue Reading →
Yitong Li How to treat cancers has always been one of the biggest challenges in modern medical practice. While current chemotherapies and radiotherapies have shown significant progress, not all patients survive treatment, and only a portion of those who survive do so without suffering from significant trauma. Hence, early diagnosis and safer treatments are the... Continue Reading →
Nisitha Sengottuvel At OncoBites, we’ve talked about many facets of cancer, the many internal and external factors that can affect tumor growth, and the established and developing methods to detect and treat cancer. We’ve also begun to cover the many ways in which biomedical science falls short in effectively treating cancer. Being diagnosed with cancer... Continue Reading →
Kaye Alcedo Politics aside, we recently lost one of our public servants who dedicated more than 40 years of service to our country. Towards the end of his life, Senator John McCain suffered from glioblastoma, a very aggressive and malignant type of brain cancer. Currently, the standard treatment for glioblastoma relies on surgery, radiation, and... Continue Reading →
Alex S. Woodell As members of the biomedical research community, we are all familiar with the basic structure of the scientific method. We make an observation that identifies a problem, form a hypothesis based on known information, perform experiments to test this hypothesis, then draw conclusions that drive future research. However, there is a fifth... Continue Reading →
Rachel Cherney Most of us have been affected by cancer, whether we ourselves or someone we know has been diagnosed. It can be caused by various lifestyle habits, external or environmental factors, and genetics, and it’s extremely prevalent; as of 2015, 1 in 6 deaths worldwide was due to cancer. As described in a previous... Continue Reading →
Shaye Hagler At Oncobites, we’ve been talking a lot about the role of immunity in cancer. Understanding the immune system is vital to understanding both what drives cancer and what protects us against it. One of the biggest paradoxes in cancer research is that immune system activation is important in fighting cancer via a process... Continue Reading →
Jason Tetro What causes cancer? It’s a question that has been asked for millennia (Sudhakar, 2009) yet no concrete answer has been found. In the 4th Century BCE, Hippocrates believed the answer lied in the presence of “black bile,” which to him was one of the four major humors in the body. Over the centuries,... Continue Reading →
Varshit Dusad Methotrexate is one of the earliest drug discovered for treatment of cancer. It is listed by WHO as one of the essential medicines and has been used to treat various forms of cancer. Methotrexate has had such broad success across cancer subtypes due to its unique mechanism of action. Inside tumors, it attacks... Continue Reading →
Zina McSweeney The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with worse colon cancer outcomes, according to research published by Brendon Guercio et al. on July 19th, 2018. Among 1,018 patients with stage III colon cancer, researchers found that replacing one 12-ounce sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) with an artificially-sweetened beverage (ASB) was estimated to lead to a... Continue Reading →
Manisit Das Not long ago Tamara mentioned in her OncoBites article that it is often hard to determine what factors drive cancer. Even after a mutation responsible for fueling cancer growth is identified, we do not always know how that mutation contributes to tumor formation. Understanding these mechanisms is however quite important. As we gain... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti Last week on OncoBites, Beth Rogoski of PhDoodles shared with us the story of liquid biopsies, blood tests that can be used to detect cancer and evaluate treatments. Today, in a follow-up piece, we’ll go into more detail as to what technologies are making their way to market, how liquid biopsies can be... Continue Reading →
Beth Rogoyski Most would consider a blood test a bit of a pain in the arm, but except for the fantastically needle-phobic, generally not something that would keep you awake at night. Contrast that to the sentiments that spring to mind when you hear the word chemotherapy, and the two couldn’t seem more dissimilar. Despite... Continue Reading →
Tamara Vital By now you’re probably noticing a running theme at OncoBites: cancer is complicated. Cancers have many moving parts, and despite our best efforts it can be difficult to know what factors drive them. Even when we have identified causal mutations in genes, it can be difficult to figure out how these mutations contribute... Continue Reading →
Emily B. Harrison, Ph.D Last month I attended the first RNA Therapeutics Conference held at University of Massachusetts Medical School. While I have attended several national conferences, this one beautifully encapsulated how basic science can lead to new drugs in only two decades. This conference inspired me to share with you the story of RNA... Continue Reading →
Morgan McSweeney A group of researchers from the University of California - San Francisco recently found that the presence of a certain group of immune cells in tumors (“stimulatory dendritic cells,” or SDCs) can predict better cancer outcomes, at least in melanoma patients. For example, in patients treated with checkpoint inhibitors (drugs that work by... Continue Reading →
Manisit Das Since the beginning of OncoBites, we’ve talked a lot about immunotherapy: using our own immune cells to destroy the cancer cells? We can’t get enough of it! In one post, we highlighted a revolutionary approach recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) using genetically modified immune cells to fight cancer,... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti The story of cancer is almost as old as the story of humans. As far back into ancient times as the 15th century BCE in Egypt, physicians have struggled to offer their patients any sort of relief from slowly spreading tumors. If tumors were visible to the naked eye--on the skin, breasts, neck,... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Wayne, Ph.D. When we talk about cancer research we are probably just thinking about scientists in lab coats, gloves, and safety goggles looking at test tubes full of cancer cells. While this is true, cancer research doesn’t just happen in a test tube or broadly, in a laboratory. The practice of studying cancer from... Continue Reading →
Natasha Vinod Rudolph Virchow was one of the first physicians to study diseases from the standpoint of cells. He applied his cell theory “Omnis cellula e cellula” ("every cell originates from another cell") to the study of cancer and reasoned that cancer results from the failure of the regulatory mechanism of the cells to control... Continue Reading →
Tamara Vital Over the last several decades, the survival rate for most kinds of breast cancer have increased due to earlier detection, new targeted therapies, and combination treatment modalities. As we’ve discussed before at Oncobites, cancer is not a single disease. It turns out that multiple distinct subtypes exist even within the category of “breast... Continue Reading →
Emily B. Harrison, Ph.D. Every year more than one million women are diagnosed with breast cancer. Tumors are most often discovered through screening techniques like self-checks, breast exams, or mammograms. Immediately, plans are made to extract the tumor either by removing a small area around the tumor, a lumpectomy, or the entire breast in a... Continue Reading →
Morgan McSweeney Cancer is not a single disease. It is a broad term that describes a number of related conditions in which cells’ growth has begun to bypass the usual checks and balances. To study the spectrum of cancers, the National Institutes of Health have established The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a collaborative project aimed... Continue Reading →
Manisit Das Your gut is crawling with bacteria, despite your devoted hygiene practices. Disgusting for your sophisticated self, isn’t it? Surprising as it is, over the course of evolution our bodies tolerated the microbial communities in our body, even cherished them. Hundreds of thousands of bacteria and other microorganisms call us home and play a... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti Historians love to say that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. In science, failing to remember and understand our history means that we may need to make the same discoveries again and again. This appears to be the case for cancer immunotherapy, a new branch of research... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Wayne, PhD Everything you need to fight cancer is inside of you. Well sort of. This is the inspirational way that I like to think of cancer immunotherapy. It’s using your own immune cells to fight cancer. We do this by trying to get immune cells to recognize cancer as a foreign pathogen, thereby... Continue Reading →
Tamara Vital We’re still just getting started here at Oncobites, but the story is already clear: Cancer is complicated. So far Morgan has covered the underlying risk factors of cancer-- the environmental and lifestyle factors that influence cancer development. Sara has explained that cancer arises in cells that acquire mutations in the genes that control... Continue Reading →
Emily B. Harrison, PhD Perhaps the only time most people consider their lymph nodes is at a doctor’s office. Often, when examining you, a physician will touch the sides of your neck, feeling for enlarged lymph nodes. In this case, swollen nodes indicate that your body is mounting an immune response. This immune response is... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti I came to a realization this week. Here at OncoBites, we made a cancer research blog and then… forgot to tell our readers what cancer is. And I know, most of you reading are thinking “I know what cancer is!” because you read about it all the time. And maybe, if you’re a... Continue Reading →
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