Reading time: 4 minutes Megan Majocha Can you imagine trying to put together clear, acrylic puzzle pieces? It is difficult to put together all the unknowns without a picture. Metastasis research is similar - trying to put the pieces together without knowing exactly how metastatic cells function in the human body. While cancer metastasis research... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Patty Spears Patients need more treatment options for metastatic breast cancer (MBC). MBC is when the cancer has spread from the breast to other parts of the body. Most patients with MBC stay on continuous treatment. This means that even those who live longer accumulate many toxicities (treatment costs and... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Colette Bilynsky The American Cancer Society has found colorectal cancer to be the 3rd highest cause of cancer deaths and 3rd highest estimated new cases in both men and women in 2022 [1]. The risk of colorectal cancer is significantly higher in people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): ulcerative colitis (UC),... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Anthony Tao It goes without saying that magnets have uses beyond simply pinning wedding RSVPs to your refrigerator. In medicine, magnetism is a crucial component of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), an invaluable diagnostic tool for clinicians. An MRI subjects the human body to an enormous magnetic field ‒ perhaps a thousand-fold... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Aya Elmeligy Angiogenesis is the formation of blood vessels within the body to provide oxygen and nutrients to tissues. Tumors will hijack this process to allow for continued growth and metastasis by forming their own vascular system. Microvessel density within a tumor is often used as a prognosis tool, as the... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Reading time: 4 minutes Hema Saranya Ilamathi Cancer can develop at any time and in any part of the human body once the conditions are favorable for their growth. They continue to multiply by utilizing nutrients available in their habitat. These cancerous cells form a mass called primary tumors. However, once their resources become limited,... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Vicky Tan Cancer severity and therapy responses can be influenced by both the cell of origin and its location. Melanoma is a skin cancer that arises from pigment-producing cells, called melanocytes. Melanoma is predicted to become the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, while in the US, 100,000 new cases... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Hannah Young Somatic mutations are changes in DNA that occur as cells in our body divide. They are distinct from germline mutations, which occur in germ cells (e.g. eggs and sperm) and are passed down from parent to child. Both somatic and germline mutations contribute to cancer and aging. While we’ve... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Bhavuk Garg Cancers are characterized by uncontrolled growth and failure of differentiation, whereby cells lose their physiological characteristics and acquire malignant phenotypes, also known as neoplastic properties. Examining the distinct properties of cancer cells and their underlying mechanisms are active areas of investigation. Broadly, these properties are summarized as hallmarks of... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Aishat Motolani The incidence of pancreatic cancer is almost commensurate with its media mentions. As a fan of the wizarding world of the Harry Potter series and the quiz game show Jeopardy, the demise of Professor Snape and Alek Trebek came as a shock. "Neither a magic wand nor an encyclopedia... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Gabby Budziszewski Proteins, the molecular machines that perform functions within our cells to keep us alive, are all encoded in DNA, but only 1-2% of our three billion base pairs of DNA encode proteins. For many years, the other 98-99% of DNA was referred to as “junk” DNA. However, we now... Continue Reading →
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: 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: 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: 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 →
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: 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 →
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