11/6/09 A new cross-institutional collaboration has led to a promising potential treatment for ovarian cancer, one of the deadliest forms of cancer. The team has reported that the nanoparticle-delivered gene therapy successfully suppressed ovarian tumor growth in mice. The nanoparticles, made of biodegradable polymers, offer a chance to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to realizing the promise of gene therapy; the viruses often used to carry genes into the body can endanger patients. Furthermore, the particles created at MIT now rival viruses’ efficiency at delivering their DNA payload.

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11/5/09    Originally from KI lab's, a nanotechnology therapy that targets cancer with a “stealth smart bomb” is to begin patient trials next year in the first clinical test of a pioneering approach to medicine. The nanoparticle, which targets tumor cells while evading the body’s immune system, promises to deliver larger and more effective doses of drugs to cancers, while simultaneously sparing patients many of the distressing side-effects of chemotherapy.  Animal studies have indicated that the treatment can shrink tumors “essentially to zero”, while being better tolerated than conventional cancer treatments. Final toxicology studies are about to begin.  A clinical trial involving about 25 cancer patients is scheduled to start within a year. If successful, it could lead to a licensed drug within five years.

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11/3/09  Pancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, killing an estimated 35,000 Americans each year. One of the reasons pancreatic cancer is so deadly is that it is hard to detect in the early stages, and that’s partly because scientists aren't sure from which cell(s) it arises.  Now, in findings that could help answer that question, MIT cancer biologists have identified a set of cells that give rise to this disease. They also found that tumors can form in other, more mature pancreatic cell types, but only when they are injured or inflamed, suggesting that pancreatic cancer can arise from different types of cells depending on the circumstances.

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10/29/09 Metastases are responsible for over 90% of cancer deaths. A new report from Dr. Robert Weinberg's team provide new molecular insight into how microRNAs suppress tumor metastasis. This study describes a detailed mechanistic insight regarding the process of tumor metastasis, and identifies several key regulators of this process that might prove to be interesting diagnostics and/or therapeutic targets in breast cancer. The team had previously shown that the human microRNA, miR-31, suppresses breast cancer metastasis and that its expression is associated with patient outcome. miR-31 regulates the expression of almost 200 genes. However, in this new report, the authors identify that re-introduction of three miR-31 targets is sufficient to completely reverse miR-31's influence on metastasis.

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10/27/09  A 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute will fund projects by physicists that give a new view of cancer cells.  KI researchers have been awarded a five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to start a new Physical Science-Oncology Center. The funding, approximately $3.5 million per year, will support four cancer research projects led by MIT physical scientists.

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