Andrographolide and parthenolide kill myeloma stem cells
This study shows that parthenolide AND andrographolide do just that: they go after the ruffians. The abstract calls them two “potent anti-MM-CSC agents.”
Potent…I like that!
Okay, I’m going to see if I can extract some gems from the full study.
As we’ve seen, it’s not enough to target the circulating plasma cells. If we want to get rid of the myeloma weed, we must go after the stem cells, the “clone troopers” (Star Wars, anyone? No, I’m not really a fan, but I do remember that expression…). The only way to prevent relapses is to kill the cloners!
Parthenolide is the first extract t...
Source: Margaret's Corner - February 14, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll andrographolide CSC myeloma parthenolide Source Type: blogs
Precision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease (Book Index)
In January, 2018, Academic Press published my bookPrecision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease. This book has an excellent " look inside " at itsGoogle book site, which includes the Table of Contents. In addition, I thought it might be helpful to see the topics listed in the Book ' s index. Note that page numbers followed by f indicate figures, t indicate tables, and ge indicate glossary terms.AAbandonware, 270, 310geAb initio, 34, 48ge, 108geABL (abelson leukemia) gene, 28, 58ge, 95 –97Absidia corymbifera, 218Acanthameoba, 213Acanthosis nigricans, 144geAchondroplasia, 74, 143ge, 354geAcne, 54ge, 198, 220geAcq...
Source: Specified Life - January 23, 2018 Category: Information Technology Tags: index jules berman jules j berman precision medicine Source Type: blogs
Second Constitutional Challenge to Texas Advance Directives Act
Chris Dunn's constitutional challenge to the Texas Advance Directives Act is on appeal to the Texas First District Court of Appeals. An opening brief has not yet been filed.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit another case raising similar issues has now been fully briefed. (Emily-Jean Aguocha-Ohakweh v. Harris County Hospital Dist.)
Aphaeus Ohakweh was admitted to Ben Taub Hospital on March 4, 2015, in need of treatment for AML – acute myeloid leukemia – a potentially fatal cancer that interferes with the production of normal red blood cells.
On March 6, 2015, while b...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - December 12, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP): MRI
Discussionby Dr MGK Murthy, Dr GA PrasadChronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is characterized clinically by a progressive or relapsing course of many months to years of symptoms similar to compressive myelopathy.Etiology Remains unknown, but T-cell activation in nerves plays an important role in the pathogenesis of CIDP& antigens in Schwann cells have been identified.PathologicallyCIDP is characterized by mononuclear cell infiltrates, edema, segmental demyelination, and remyelination&“onion bulb formation” which describes enlarged fascicles with increased endoneural connective t...
Source: Sumer's Radiology Site - December 12, 2017 Category: Radiology Authors: Sumer Sethi Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 16th 2017
In this study, we have shown that the lipid chaperones FABP4/FABP5 are critical intermediate factors in the deterioration of metabolic systems during aging. Consistent with their roles in chronic inflammation and insulin resistance in young prediabetic mice, we found that FABPs promote the deterioration of glucose homeostasis; metabolic tissue pathologies, particularly in white and brown adipose tissue and liver; and local and systemic inflammation associated with aging. A systematic approach, including lipidomics and pathway-focused transcript analysis, revealed that calorie restriction (CR) and Fabp4/5 deficiency result ...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 15, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Small Molecule Drug that Selectively Induces Apoptosis in Cancer Cells
This cancer research is interesting for the strong resemblance it bears to current senolytic strategies to destroy senescent cells by forcing them into the programmed cell death process of apoptosis: these cells are primed for that fate, but fail to reach it on their own. The therapies used affect normal cells as well as the targeted senescent cells, but cause little impact in the healthy cells that should be spared. This same type of approach is here applied to cancerous cells, using a close relative of the pro-apoptosis targets employed for senescent cells. Considered at the high level, this makes an interesting counterp...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 10, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
What Does an Ideal Healthcare System Look Like?
By ASHISH JHA, MD
Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll recently approached me about a New York Times UpShot piece aiming to rank eight healthcare systems they had chosen: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This forced me to think about a pretty fundamental question: what do we want from a healthcare system?
I would argue that most people want a healthcare system where they can get timely access to high quality, affordable care and one that also promotes innovation of new tests and treatments. But underlying these sentiments are a lot of important issues that nee...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
TWiV 459: Polio turns over a new leaf
The TWiV team reviews the first FDA approved gene therapy, accidental exposure to poliovirus type 2 in a manufacturing plant, and production of a candidate poliovirus vaccine in plants.
Click arrow to play
Download TWiV 459 (63 MB .mp3, 105 min)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email
Become a patron of TWiV!
Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - September 17, 2017 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology accidental exposure acute lymphoblastic leukemia Agrobacterium CAR chimeric antigen receptor empty capsid gene therapy inactivated polio vaccine IPV Kymriah lentivirus vector Nicotiana plant poliovirus t Source Type: blogs
The $475,000 drug
The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first gene therapy, Kymriah, to treat B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It uses a lentivirus to modify the patient’s T cells to kill tumor cells.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, is caused by uncontrolled growth of B cells, which normally produce antibodies to fight off infections. It is the most common cancer in children. The uncontrolled production of these cells by the bone marrow causes a shortage of blood cell production, leading to fever, increased risk of infection, and anemia. These B cells have on their surfaces a protein called B19 – wh...
Source: virology blog - September 15, 2017 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information ALL B cell B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia B19 CAR chimeric antigen receptor gene therapy Kymriah lentivirus viral viruses Source Type: blogs
After 8 years, this doctor is finally treating his pancreatic tumors
I’ve known that I’ve had tumors in my pancreas since 2009. Until now I’ve done nothing about them.
This might sound like a counter-intuitive, even foolhardy strategy, especially for an oncologist, who should surely know better than to let his disease gain an advantage through his own inaction. But I don’t have the “usual” type of pancreatic cancer, the kind that claimed the life of Patrick Swayze and has sentenced many other lesser-known patients to a hasty, painful, jaundiced death.
Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is, indeed, a fearsome foe; I certainly haven’t compiled a list of m...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 6, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/mark-a-lewis" rel="tag" > Mark A. Lewis, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Gastroenterology Oncology/Hematology Surgery Source Type: blogs
Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapies Continue to Do Well Against Blood Cancers
Chimeric antigen receptor approaches to cancer treatment involve taking a patient's T cells and equipping them with a new receptor that allows the immune cells to target specific characteristics of cancer cells. Despite the usual complications and challenges that tend to occur in the development of immunotherapies, involving potentially dangerous disruption of the immune system, this type of therapy has proven to be highly effective against blood cancers. It remains to be deployed against solid cancers, although researchers are well on their way towards reaching that goal, but there is every reason to expect it to be just ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 6, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Chimeric Antigen Receptor Cancer Immunotherapies Continue to Look Promising
Cancer treatments based on the use of chimeric antigen receptors are one of the more promising of present forms of immunotherapy. In trials they are producing good results in patients with late stage leukemia and lymphoma, who lack any other options, and are comparatively fragile and beaten down by the combination of disease and prior aggressive treatments. They should do even better once deployed earlier, for patients who have not run this gauntlet. In cancer, as in many things, the earlier the intervention the better the prognosis.
Six months after receiving infusions of their own T cells - genetically engineere...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 3, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
What pediatricians should know about bone marrow failure syndromes
Pediatricians face a difficult task determining when to refer a child for a suspected bone marrow failure syndrome. We now realize that only a subset of children with bone marrow failure syndromes present with the findings described in textbooks. These children often appear well and lack classical physical stigmata. By the time they look sick, their marrow’s ability to produce blood cells can be so weakened that it could be too late — or at least much more difficult — to treat them successfully.
These rare disorders can range from life-threatening conditions requiring a hematopoietic stem cell transplant to...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 28, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/akiko-shimamura" rel="tag" > Akiko Shimamura, MD, PhD < /a > Tags: Conditions Cancer Source Type: blogs
Varicella Virus, the Old and the New
I want to reawaken awareness of a disappearing but highly contagious infectious disease — varicella. Thanks to immunizations for the wild-type varicella virus and shingles, or herpes zoster, younger health care providers are less aware of the appearance and clinical presentations of this viral infection.Presentations of this viral disease have markedly declined and presentations are often atypical since the advent of immunizations for varicella in 1995. This DNA virus within the herpes virus family is generally a mild childhood disease but can wreak physical havoc in adults, especially pregnant women. Immunosuppressed...
Source: M2E Too! Mellick's Multimedia EduBlog - February 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
