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 →
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 →
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 Brittany Avin McKelvey We are in a hayday for cancer therapies, as research has surpassed traditional chemotherapeutics. New drugs, new treatment regimens, and even new drug classes are approved each day, broadening the horizons of oncology. The newest types of drugs to recently gain FDA approval are tissue agnostic drugs. (See... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Alejandra Canales Finding treatments for lung cancer is hard because, simply-put, cancerous cells are extremely stubborn, and patients with non-small cell lung cancer can often acquire resistance to a treatment regimen. Researchers have been exploring the feasibility of “liquid biopsies,” whereby a non-invasive blood sample could be used to obtain information... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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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