Recent newsreports/articles about FIGHTING Cancer
EDITORIAL-CURRENT SCIENCE, India
(Volume 103, No. 3, 10 August 2012)ABSTRACT:
Cancer research is a complex field. Despite decades of intense research, the war on cancer may well extend far into 21st century and maybe even beyond. The search for new targets for attack by chemotheorapy is intensely competitive field of research. An increasingly sophisticated tools of research are being deployed in an area where the view from trenches appear grim. Issues of toxicity, efficiacy and resistance seem to quickly dull the promise of new drugs leads. Evolution by natural selection can be a double edged sword, which favours the hardier, more adaptable tomour to cells to score over their normal counterparts.
(Posted by National Academies Press, USA: Tue, 02 Oct 2012)
As
information technology becomes an integral part of health care, it is
important to collect and analyze data in a way that makes the
information understandable and useful. Informatics tools - which help
collect, organize, and analyze data - are essential to biomedical and
health research and development. The field of cancer research is facing
an overwhelming deluge of data, heightening the national urgency to
find solutions to support and sustain the cancer informatics ecosystem.
There is a particular need to integrate research and clinical data to
facilitate personalized medicine approaches to cancer prevention and
treatment - for example, tailoring treatment based on an individual
patient's genetic makeup as well as that of the tumor - and to allow
for more rapid learning from patient experiences.To further examine informatics needs and challenges for 21st century biomedical research, the IOM's National Cancer Policy Forum held a workshop February 27-28, 2012. The workshop was designed to raise awareness of the critical and urgent importance of the challenges, gaps and opportunities in informatics; to frame the issues surrounding the development of an integrated system of cancer informatics for acceleration of research; and to discuss solutions for transformation of the cancer informatics enterprise. Informatics Needs and Challenges in Cancer Research: Workshop Summary summarizes the workshop.
Cancer starts when a single cell undergoes a mutation that takes the biological brakes off and lets it divide out of control. The trigger for that may be damage to DNA caused by a carcinogen such as ultraviolet light or cigarette smoke, it may result from an inherited genetic weakness, or it may just be random bad luck.
Given that the average person contains more than 10tn cells – and the DNA copying process is far from perfect – it is amazing how rarely cancer gets going. But once it does, the disease throws many rules of human biology out of the window. In particular, cancer cells mutate far more rapidly than healthy ones.
Although most of these random mutations are harmful and kill the cells, they occur so frequently that occasionally the process will help the cancer proliferate, for example by building the blood supply that a solid tumour needs to grow and, most importantly, by becoming resistant to drugs prescribed to treat the disease.
India, University of Cambridge tie up for research venture at Bangalore
LONDON: To develop new scientific approaches for treatment of diseases like cancer, India's Department of Biotechnology and the University of Cambridge are setting up a new initiative for chemical biology and molecular therapeutics at inStem, Bangalore.
Funded by the DBT, the initiative will be conducted in collaboration with the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the University of Cambridge said in a release today.
The DBT will provide the rupee equivalent of 11 million pounds for the research, in which researchers will combine methods from genetics, chemistry, cell biology, biochemistry and imaging to understand the alterations in cellular systems that underlie human diseases, and identify ways to correct them using drugs.
The initiative is expected to develop powerful new scientific approaches for the treatment of diseases like cancer, integrating expertise from the basic and clinical sciences in India, the university said.
The initiative is expected to create a multidisciplinary environment for training young researchers and physicians in the translation of fundamental research to clinical application.
The new initiative is the result of a collaboration that links Professors S Ramaswamy, K Vijay Raghavan, Satyajit Mayor and colleagues at inStem and NCBS in Bangalore, with Professor Ashok Venkitaraman at the University of Cambridge.
The initiative began in September 2011 when Cambridge University's Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz signed a memorandum of understanding with the inStem and NCBS.
Professor Venkitaraman, who is the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research, University of Cambridge and Director, Medical Research Council Cancer Cell Unit, said: "Having originally trained and practiced as a physician in India, I am delighted that the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India will be supporting this exciting new initiative".
He added: "The excellence of my colleagues in Bangalore, and the terrific research environment they have created, inspires confidence that we can work together not only to improve our fundamental understanding of the cellular abnormalities that cause human diseases like cancer but also to translate this information for the benefit of patients."
Professor K Vijay Raghavan, Acting Director of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) and the Director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) said: "inStem is taking a new and adventurous path of collaborative, team-driven efforts to address the most challenging of biomedical problems.
The NCBS-inStem campus provides an ideal intellectual environment for this collaboration with Cambridge to succeed."
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