1/3/2007 Berkeley, CA press release UCBerkeley News (www.berkeley.edu) While a newly marketed vaccine promises to drastically reduce human papilloma virus (HPV) infections, the major cause of cervical cancer, a new discovery by University of California, Berkeley, researchers could some day help the millions of people already infected and at constant risk of genital warts and cancer. One study found that 75 percent of sexually active men and women under 50 have, or have had, an HPV infection, while 10,000 women annually develop cervical cancer, more than 90 percent of which is caused by HPV. Four thousand women die of cervical cancer each year. In upper photo, the chromosomes of a dividing epithelial cell (red) have more than a hundred hitchhikers — DNA plasmids of the human papilloma virus (green). Treating a cell with a special peptide created by UC Berkeley researchers kicks the hitchhikers off (lower photo), and could lead to a drug that will prevent spread of the virus. (Photos courtesy Botchan lab/UC Berkeley) Once infected, it's difficult to rid oneself of the virus because it hides as a latent DNA in cells of the epithelial tissue, such as skin and the lining of the vagina and cervix, and spreads as these cells divide. The UC Berkeley team created a protein fragment, or peptide, that successfully prevents the virus from hitching a ride on a cell's chromosomes as the cell divides. If such a peptide - or more likely, a drug that mimics the action of the peptide - [...]

1/2/2007 web-based article staff Life Science News (news.biocompare.com) A research team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has for the first time identified several genes whose expression is lost in four of the most common solid human cancers – lung, breast, prostate and colon cancer. The findings, which researchers say could form the basis for a new early detection screen for certain cancers, are published today in the online journal Public Library of Science Medicine. The expression of genes that inhibit cancer development, so-called tumor suppressor genes, is often lost in tumor cells. This can occur through a mutation in the gene's DNA sequence or through deletion of the gene. Loss of tumor suppression function also can occur in a process called methylation, where a chemical called a methyl group is attached to a DNA region near the gene and prevents it from being activated, essentially "silencing" the gene. "These results show the power of studying tumors on a genome-wide basis, looking at many genes at the same time," said Dr. John Minna, the study's senior author and director of the W.A. "Tex" and Deborah Moncrief Jr. Center for Cancer Genetics and the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research at UT Southwestern. In an effort to identify new tumor-suppressor genes that might be important to lung and breast cancer development, the UT Southwestern team examined which genes are active in those kinds of tumors and compared them to gene expression profiles from normal lung epithelial cells. [...]

1/2/2007 College Park, MD press release University of Maryland, Greenbaum Cancer Center University of Maryland researchers have begun testing “Trojan peptide” vaccines to treat squamous cell carcinoma, a common type of head and neck cancer. The goal is to learn whether the vaccines, which target specific proteins made by tumors, can stimulate the body’s immune system to destroy the cancer. Made from peptides, or fragments of proteins found in select tumor cells, the vaccines being used in this Phase I clinical study are designed to slip into cells with the help of a “chaperone” that carries the bulky protein molecules through dense cell membranes, much like a “Trojan horse” bringing soldiers behind enemy lines before a surprise attack. “We hope that these vaccines will stimulate the patients’ T cells, or immune cells, to recognize the proteins as invaders and seek out and kill the cancer cells throughout the body that produce the same proteins,” says Scott E. Strome, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the lead investigator of the study. Both vaccines being tested target proteins linked to squamous cell cancers of the head and neck, most commonly seen in the mouth, throat and other parts of the upper digestive tract. The proteins are human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and MAGE-A3. HPV 16 is also linked to cervical cancer. Dr. Strome, who helped to develop these unique peptide vaccines, says that the vaccines are experimental and [...]

1/2/2007 Cambridge, MA Kevin Bullis Technology Review (www.technologyreview.com) The first in a new generation of nanotechnology-based cancer treatments will likely begin clinical trials in 2007, and if the promise of animal trials carries through to human trials, these treatments will transform cancer therapy. By replacing surgery and conventional chemotherapy with noninvasive treatments targeted at cancerous tumors, this nanotech approach could reduce or eliminate side effects by avoiding damage to healthy tissue. It could also make it possible to destroy tumors that are inoperable or won't respond to current treatment. One of these new approaches places gold-coated nanoparticles, called nanoshells, inside tumors and then heats them with infrared light until the cancer cells die. Because the nanoparticles also scatter light, they could be used to image tumors as well. Mauro Ferrari, a leader in the field of nanomedicine and professor of bioengineering at the University of Texas Health Science Center, says this is "very exciting" technology. "With chemotherapy," Ferrari says, "we carpet bomb the patient, hoping to hit the lesions, the little foci of disease. To be able to shine the light only where you want this thing to heat up is a great advantage." Although several groups are now working on similar localized treatments, Naomi Halas and Jennifer West have led the way in this area, and their work is the farthest along. (See "Nano Weapons Join the Fight Against Cancer.") Nearly ten years ago, Halas, professor of chemistry and electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, developed a precise [...]

1/1/2007 London, England Fionna McCrae www.dailymail.co.uk A quick and easy mouthwash test for hard-to-diagnose cancers of the head and neck is being developed by scientists. The kit - which looks for telltale signs of the disease in cells from the inside of a person's cheeks - has proved more than 80 per cent accurate at distinguishing healthy people from cancer sufferers. Such a "gargle and spit" test could prove invaluable in diagnosing the cancers which affect more than 7,000 Britons a year - and kill 2,500. High-profile sufferers of head and neck cancers have included the journalist, John Diamond, who suffered from throat cancer and George Harrison, who suffered both neck and throat cancer. They both died in 2001. The cancers, which include mouth, nose, throat, ear and eye tumours, are hard to diagnose and difficult to treat. Many are not spotted until the cancer has spread and a third of patients die within a year of diagnosis. Surgery can be disfiguring and lead to problems with speech, hearing or eating and just 40 per cent of sufferers are still alive five years after diagnosis. Early diagnosis would allow treatment to start at a time when it is most likely to be effective. The test, being developed in the U.S., picks up important genetic changes linked to head and neck cancer. The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, identified the abnormalities after studying the genetics of hundreds of cancer sufferers and healthy people. The volunteers were asked to gargle [...]

1/1/2007 Washington, D.C. Lauran Neergaard MyWay News (apnews.myway.com) Reluctant to get a second opinion? Consider this: Over half of breast cancer patients had their initial treatment changed when they sought a review at a specialty center. But the question remains whether everybody with cancer really needs to go shopping for a second opinion. And if the first two doctors disagree, do you need a tiebreaker? Better than serial doc-shopping may be what Dr. Michael Sabel, a University of Michigan breast cancer surgeon, calls the team approach. It's where specialists in different aspects of cancer care - the radiologist and pathologist, surgeon, medical oncologist and radiation oncologist - all get together, usually with the patient, to reread all the tests and hash out the best treatment. That, not run-of-the-mill second opinions, is what Sabel set out to study when he examined what happened to 149 breast cancer patients who, in one year alone, came to Michigan's Comprehensive Cancer Center after being diagnosed, biopsied and getting a treatment recommended from a doctor elsewhere. "This was very eye-opening," he says of the results. Now he wonders, "Is there a benefit to the multidisciplinary approach upfront, rather than seeing a surgeon, then going to the next doctor, then to the next doctor?" The study examined just recommendations for initial surgical treatment, not later chemotherapy or radiation - yet 52 percent of the women had one or more changes urged by the specialty tumor board, Sabel reported in the journal Cancer. Sometimes it was because [...]

12/29/2006 London, England Robert West British Medical Bulletin 2006 77-78(1):123-136 The history of tobacco control in the twentieth century can be summed up by the phrase ‘too little, too late’. The century saw the proliferation of the most deadly form of tobacco use: cigarette smoking. Until the 1970s, no government took serious action to protect its citizens. In fact, probably the most effective global tobacco control ‘strategies’ to date have not been motivated by health concerns: they have been inaccessible or uneconomic markets for tobacco companies and a cultural taboo on women smoking. Economic development has led to massive increases in male cigarette smoking in developing countries but even now <10% of women in non-Western countries such as China, Russia and India smoke. With ‘westernization’, this picture is changing. Without drastic action to get current smokers to stop, the annual rate of tobacco-related deaths will grow from 5 million in 2006 to 10 million in 2025. Without further action to prevent take up of smoking, the subsequent death toll will be even higher. The recently enacted World Health Organization (WHO)-initiated Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) can mitigate this impending disaster but only if it is implemented according to the spirit and not just the letter of the articles contained therein. Specific tobacco levies in every country should be the primary means of kick-starting the process, with the proceeds being used exclusively to fund other tobacco control initiatives, including product regulation. Author's affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University [...]

12/29/2006 Austin, TX staff Statesman.com Introgen Therapeutics Inc. said Thursday that it will soon start analyzing the data from its phase III clinical trials for Advexin, a drug to treat head and neck cancer. The review signals that Introgen is nearing the end of its approval process for its leading product. Phase III is the last clinical trial stage and usually the most expensive and time-consuming. CEO David Nance said the data from the phase II trials show Advexin helps patients with head and neck cancers. "Our expanded studies show a larger number of patients with a very high statistically significant survival benefit from Advexin therapy," said Bob Sobol, senior vice president at the Austin company. Introgen is waiting for approval from the Food and Drug Administration before it can sell Advexin to the public. The company first applied two years ago. Advexin is a targeted gene-based therapy intended for head-and-neck cancer patients. It uses the p53 gene, a tumor suppressor, to kill cancer cells.

12/28/2006 Kolkata, India Rohit Khanna www.financialexpress.com Biotech firm Biocon Ltd is planning to submit the results of the post-marketing surveillance study (PMS) of its cancer drug, BIOMAB-EGFR, to the global safety database in US. The database, maintained by a consortium of companies, collects clinical trial data pertaining to the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Dr Subir Basak, Biocon's general manager for business development, said: "Head and neck cancer is not studied in the US, while the Indian sub-continent accounts for one-third of the head and neck cancer patients in the world. The PMS study report will be beneficial to the research of cancer the world over". The trial results for this drug, touted as being the world's first humanised monoclonal antibody for cancer, have been published in Journal of Clinical Oncology of US in 2004. The drug targets the human EGFR, a type of protein found on the surface of both normal and cancer cells. Small proteins circulating in the blood, called epidermal growth factors (EGF), bind with them. This binding stimulates certain biological processes within the cell to promote cell growth in a controlled manner. In many cells, EGFR is overproduced, leading to abnormal growth. The role of EGFR in malignant cell formation has prompted the development of biological agents, like BIOMAB-EGER, which disrupts and inhibits the EGFR signaling process. Apart from a large trial going on in North America, Biocon will start PMS trial in India soon. "Results have shown that while the FDA approved drugs increase [...]

12/28/2006 web-based article press release Medicalnewstoday.com Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that it had received 501(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to market MuGard in the United States. MuGard is Access' proprietary oral rinse product for the management of oral mucositis, the debilitating side-effect which afflicts more than 40% of cancer patients undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. There is currently no well-accepted treatment for mucositis, and the Company believes that MuGard should be a valuable supportive care option for cancer patients. The estimated size of the market for this indication in the U.S. exceeds $1 billion. The Company is actively seeking marketing partners for this product in the U.S. and in other territories. Rosemary Mazanet, MD, PhD, Acting CEO of Access stated, "This approval marks a major milestone for the company following the decision to focus on the development and commercialization of proprietary products for the treatment and supportive care of cancer patients. We are in active discussions for licensing and manufacturing the product and expect to have more announcements in the future." In previously reported clinical studies MuGard prevented significant mucositis in over 40% of patients in a population where the incidence of mucositis normally exceeds 90%. In addition to the management of mucositis, the approved indication for MuGard includes all types of oral wounds, including aphthous ulcers (canker sores) and traumatic ulcers, such us those caused by oral surgery or ill-fitting dentures or braces. This broad-based approval provides the Company with the opportunity to promote the use [...]