Neuroblastoma researcher investigates promising new treatment
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants, has awarded a nearly $100,000 grant to support a Michigan State University scientist’s study of a promising new treatment for neuroblastoma, an often-fatal pediatric cancer.
For 17 years, André Bachmann, professor of pediatrics and the College of Human Medicine’s associate chair for research, has spearheaded preclinical research on a drug called DFMO, or difluoromethylornithine, as a potential weapon against neuroblastoma. DFMO was developed in 1978 and is extremely effective as the front-line therapy against West African sleeping sickness.
Virus-like particle could lead to new cancer vaccine
Michigan State University scientists are engineering a virus-like particle, known as Qβ, that will generate anti-cancer immune responses in the body and potentially be used as a new vaccine for the treatment of cancer.
The project, funded by a $2.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, will support the development of the vaccine to protect animals against cancerous cells that are currently untreatable, and could easily translate to vaccines for humans’ use of spontaneously occurring cancers.
MSU researchers studying drug to stop cancer-causing gene
Michigan State University scientists are testing a promising drug that may stop a gene associated with obesity from triggering breast and lung cancer, as well as prevent these cancers from growing.
These findings are based on two studies featured in the latest issue of Cancer Prevention Research.
The first was a preclinical study, led by Karen Liby, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Results showed that the drug, I-BET-762, is showing signs of significantly delaying the development of existing breast and lung cancers by zeroing in on how a cancerous gene, called c-Myc, acts.
Can mice really mirror humans when it comes to cancer?
A new Michigan State University study is helping to answer a pressing question among scientists of just how close mice are to people when it comes to cancer.
The findings, now published in PLOS Genetics, reveal how mice can actually mimic human breast cancer tissue and its genes, even more so than previously thought, as well as other cancers including lung, oral and esophagus.