-
Initial results of a novel three-drug combination therapy in patients with multiple myeloma have been so encouraging that Dana-Farber researchers believe the treatment may delay the need for a stem cell transplant in some cases.
-
Conceiving a new use for existing technology can have as big an impact as inventing a novel technology itself. Witness the OncoMap program in Dana-Farber's Center for Cancer Genome Discovery, which helps scientists tap information in tumor samples to advance understanding of adult and childhood cancers.
-
The Center for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation's researchers have not only helped develop the first-ever test for radiation exposure, but also found leads toward drugs that could reduce the harmful effects of radiation.
-
Dana-Farber researcher Jean Zhao, PhD, and a team of fellow Dana-Farber scientists have added a new piece to the puzzle of explaining how a series of molecular changes enables free-floating cancer cells to survive and spread.
-
There are some cancers that that seem to burst onto the scene in an advanced, malignant state, having already overrun a wide swath of tissue in the body. One of the most common of these tumors is known as serous ovarian cancer. Less than a quarter of the cases are detected at an early stage. Dana-Farber scientists are trying to search for their source.
-
A novel drug treatment that supercharges the production of cord blood stem cells is entering human testing at Dana-Farber. If successful, it could improve outcomes of such transplants while reducing the number of umbilical cords needed.
-
Among their many talents as message couriers and gene regulators, microRNA molecules also help control the repair of damaged DNA within cells, Dana-Farber and Harvard Medical School scientists have found.
-
A few young children may be cured and others given a better shot at long term survival thanks to a new therapy regimen administered to young patients with an aggressive type of brain tumor, say Dana-Farber researchers.
-
Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD, a cardiothoracic surgeon in the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, is testing a small solution to the problem of lung cancer recurrence following surgery.
-
Dana-Farber researchers have identified a set of proteins that may aid in the treatment of a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer designated "triple-negative."
-
Leading research institutions in nine countries, including Dana-Farber, have joined forces to uncover the genetic changes that make cancer cells dangerous and elusive.
-
Scientists are gaining a better understanding of how and why metabolic factors such as obesity, lack of exercise, and diabetes can predispose people to cancer.
-
RNA interference has dramatically speeded up experiments aimed at discovering genes' roles by turning them off and measuring the effect. Researchers at Dana-Farber have deployed RNAi technology in a hunt for genes they call cancer's "Achilles' heels" – abnormally behaving genes that tumors depend on to grow, survive, and progress.
-
For more than 20 years, Dana-Farber scientists have been looking for the best way to attack a complex cell-signaling pathway known as PI3K that often goes awry in breast, colon, and other cancers. Now, Tom Roberts, PhD, Jean Zhao, PhD, and their colleagues in the Department of Cancer Biology appear to have found such a target. When they knocked out one form of a protein in the PI3K pathway in mouse cells, the cells became resistant to factors that normally would make them cancerous, they report.
-
Everyone knows that tobacco use is harmful and often lethal: Its combined contributions to lung cancer, heart disease, and pulmonary disorders result in 435,000 preventable deaths annually. Most people would be surprised, however, to learn that unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are catching up fast, currently causing an estimated 400,000 avoidable deaths a year.
