receptor – Oral Cancer News

Common local anesthetic may be effective against head and neck cancers

Source: newatlas.com Author: Paul McClure A new study has uncovered how the commonly used local anesthetic drug, lidocaine, activates bitter taste receptors to exert an anti-cancer effect in head and neck cancers. Given its low cost and ready availability, the drug could easily be incorporated into the treatment of patients with this challenging form of cancer. Anyone who’s had a cut sutured up or a dental procedure such as a filling will probably be familiar with lidocaine (also known as lignocaine). While it’s known how the local anesthetic drug exerts its pain-inhibiting effects, it’s been suggested that lidocaine also has a beneficial effect on cancer patients, although how is not fully understood. Now, a study led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has solved a long-standing mystery of how lidocaine causes the death of certain cancer cells. “We’ve been following this line of research for years but were surprised to find that lidocaine targets the one receptor that happened to be mostly highly expressed across cancers,” said Robert Lee, a corresponding author of the study. That ‘one receptor’ is T2R14, a bitter taste receptor that’s expressed in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs), cancers with a high mortality and significant treatment-related morbidity. HNSCCs arise in the mucosa of oral and nasal cavities due to exposure to environmental carcinogens and/or the human papillomavirus (HPV). In addition to their role in bitter taste perception, bitter taste receptors (T2Rs) are involved in innate immunity, thyroid function, cardiac physiology, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-11-29T18:20:42-07:00November, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

RowanSOM researcher begins human trials for cancer treatment drug

Source: today.rowan.edu Author: news release Could a targeted therapy derived from a plant used medicinally in China for centuries offer the next breakthrough in cancer treatment? Dr. Gary Goldberg, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine (RowanSOM), is undertaking a human clinical trial to find out. Goldberg and his team are collaborating with a group at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School headed by Dr. Mahnaz Fatazadeh, professor at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, to test a new drug candidate called MASL. This novel compound has been trademarked and licensed from Rowan University by Sentrimed, a company founded by Goldberg. MASL is derived from Maackia amurensis, a legume tree native to the Amur River valley, which flows through parts of Russia and China. The MASL human trial marks a milestone for RowanSOM, Goldberg noted. “Coming up with a new drug and taking it to a clinical trial is an excellent example of investigator-initiated research from bench to bedside,” said Goldberg. “It has taken a lot of collaboration and work to get to this point.” The FDA considers MASL an investigational new drug. “This is a unique Phase I trial,” Goldberg said. “This study integrates investigation of patient safety, along with potential efficacy and proof of concept mechanistic studies.” Goldberg and his team began the ongoing human trial, involving 20 cancer patients, in fall 2020. While MASL has the potential to treat many kinds of cancer, this trial will test MASL’s effects on [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-07-01T08:33:12-07:00July, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

U-M scientists observe deadly dance between nerves and cancer cells

Source: ns.umich.edu Author: Laura Bailey In certain types of cancer, nerves and cancer cells enter an often lethal and intricate waltz where cancer cells and nerves move toward one another and eventually engage in such a way that the cancer cells enter the nerves. The fluorescence image shows the interaction between the nerve (red) and cancer (green). Image credit: Nisha D’Silva The findings, appearing in Nature Communications, challenge conventional wisdom about perineural invasion, which holds that cancer cells are marauders that invade nerves through the path of least resistance, said Nisha D'Silva, principal investigator and professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. D'Silva's lab discovered that perineural invasion is actually a much more intricately choreographed biochemical give-and-take between the nerves and the cancer cells. "Once head and neck cancer invades the nerves, it is one of the worst things that can happen," said D'Silva, who also has a joint appointment at the U-M Medical School Department of Pathology and is a member of the U-M Cancer Center's Head and Neck Oncology program. "It is highly correlated with poor patient survival, and there is no targeted treatment for it because it is not known why some tumors do this and some don't." Perineural invasion is seen most in head and neck, pancreatic, stomach and colon cancers, and causes severe pain or numbness, tumor spread and recurrence, and loss of function, among other complications. D'Silva's lab found that perineural invasion begins when the nerve releases a stimulus that triggers a [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-04-29T13:13:53-07:00April, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Researchers find potential new therapeutic strategy for head and neck cancer

Source: www.uab.edu Author: Beena Thannickal Shih-Hsin (Eddy) Yang, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology and associate scientist in the experimental therapeutics program at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, found a way to prevent head and neck cancer cells from repairing damage to DNA as they grow. The findings, published by the Public Library of Science, showed that using the drug cetuximab can induce a DNA repair defect in head and neck cancer cells, and subsequently render the tumors susceptible to PARP inhibitors, which block enzymes that repair some types of DNA damage. This method prevents cancer cells from repairing the damage to the DNA as they grow, ultimately leading to cancer inhibition. Poly ADP-ribose polymerases, or PARPs, are enzymes that repair some types of damage done to DNA. If they are inhibited, a backup repair pathway is initiated. Cetuximab, which inhibits the epidermal growth factor receptor signaling pathway of cancer cells, blocks this backup pathway and thus induces cancer cell death. “The novelty of this finding is that we use targeted agents like cetuximab, in combination with a PARP inhibitor, ABT-888, both of which have already been tested to be safe in humans, to selectively kill tumors defective in DNA repair while potentially minimizing side effects,” says Yang. Cetuximab was pioneered by James Bonner, M.D., chair of the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology, in a landmark multi-institutional clinical trial in head and neck cancer patients. Because head and neck cancers are frequently aggressive, outcomes [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-09-23T16:29:08-07:00September, 2011|Oral Cancer News|