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Welcome to the second edition of the brand-spankin’-new Cancer Research Blog Carnival, a tradition in the making begun by those crazy geniuses that are, collectively, The Bayblab.

Let’s kick things off with a pair of items from Doctor David’s Blog, written by a pediatric oncologist and researcher. He first introduces us to his research involving potential cancer stem cells in Ewing’s sarcoma, the treatment for which remains unsuccessful in a large number of cases. Ideally, the unequivocal identification and further characterization of these cells will allow for more effective early diagnosis and therapy for this nasty disease.He also tips us off to the interesting alarming news that increasingly-ubiquitous RFID chips, which have been highly touted as key agents in the future of portable personal medical records, so enthusiastically touted at times as to suggest that they may actually hold the cure for cancer within their tiny shells, are in fact linked to the development of cancer in lab animals. Oops. What’s more: There may have been some funky business going on in its cover-up:

How did these devices get approved by the FDA if they cause tumors in mice? I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but I could offer one reason for their approval: The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip’s approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device’s approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months he became a board member of VeriChip Corp.”

Okay, but one question still remains: My dog has an RFID chip implanted in him. Say he gets cancer. Does he eat the cancer? These are important questions, people!—about as important as why the hell a government agency would approve something that’s been shown to cause malignant tumors in mice for human use.

Joe Oncology tells us about a fascinating new non-invasive and inexpensive method for detecting a number of different cancers: push on ‘em, and watch what happens. I happen to fancy my description, but the more “glamorous” name for it is elastography:

Recently, studies have demonstrated remarkable detection accuracy rates in thyroid, prostate, and breast cancer detection. Last year, a small breast cancer detection study involving 80 women accurately distinguished 100% of malignant tumors and 99% of non-malignant tumors.”

All together now: “Why didn’t I think of that??”

A lot of talk has been floating around in recent years about the phenomenon that calorie restriction leads to gains in lifespan. However, the reason for this is not entirely clear, and explanations that have been offered have largely been superficial and often raise more questions than they answer in the first place.Well, The Cheerful Oncologist directs us to another piece of the puzzle: NAD⁺ is increased in the context of calorie restriction and appears to be cytoprotective. Explains the cheerful one:

What they found is that mitochondria exposed to stress and nutrient restriction can still maintain adequate levels of the important coenzyme NAD+, and that rats fasted for 48 hours can increase production of mitochondrial NAD+ by activating the gene that can increase production of NAD+…It may be the most important anti-aging gene in the eukaryotic cell, not to mention us humans. … Reducing the calorie intake of a mammal may delay the aging process and protect against such devastating age-related illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”

Very cool stuff. Should’ve paid more attention in biochemistry class.

Walter over at Highlight Health writes about a practice that we’ll be seeing more and more in the treatment of cancer (not to mention any other disease) in the coming years: personalized therapies based on specific individual expression profiles. Says Walter:

This technology allows physicians to personalize medication regimens based an individual’s unique gene expression profile, enabling them to choose drugs and dosages most likely to have a positive effect. With personalized medicine, therapeutic options can be chosen based on evidence, rather than instinct. This report is interesting because oncologists don’t yet base treatment decisions on gene expression profiling. The results demonstrate that a personalized molecular oncology approach, basing chemotherapy on tumor gene expression, has a great deal of promise.”

This is fascinating stuff and has already been taking place to some extent with the emergence of translational research. However, tailoring individual treatment strategies based on individual disease characteristics has not yet become widespread, but with cheaper methodologies and an ever-expanding pool of molecular targets, this is clearly the future of cancer treatment.

Speaking of personalized information, Robert at the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation’s Brain Blogger…blog invokes Craig Venter’s most recent escapade foray into the news involving the public release of his own genome sequence and his subsequent prophylactic use of statins to counteract his apparent risk for cholesterol problems. He’s also got some visions for the future of personalized care, namely in public awareness of health risks and its increased influence on specific lifestyle modifications to avoid disease (a la Venter). Finally, he touches on the potential benefits of peace of mind in avoiding cancer:

Emotional stress appears to increase oxidative stress as well — the same oxidative stress that contributes to cancer. … Let’s talk about a genetic connection. People who are members of genotypes (GSTM1 and GSTT1) that lack genes for glutathione S-transferase are more vulnerable to oxidative damage and cancer from effects such as smoking, according to a recent study. The same study found that four cups a day of green tea were especially helpful for this genetic group in reducing the oxidative damage.”

I think it’s safe to say that most medical and graduate students are squarely in the “high cancer risk group” when it comes to stress levels. Crap.

Maurizio over at Omnologos examines in detail the debate of power lines and their possible relationship to pediatric leukaemias, and he does a rather thorough workup. He also schools us on some basic statistical and epidemiological methods:

Statistical indicators are explained poorly and in an alarmistic manner. For example, a Relative Risk of 1.69 is described as a 69% increased probability to develop leukaemia. Such a reporting is mathematically right, conceptually wrong and frankly misleading. Is there as 400% growth in increasing one’s savings from £1 to £4? Yes, but it’s still just £4. Moreover, as explained below, values of RR less than 3 seldom are considered worth of note in epidemiological studies.”

Check it out.

James Randerson, increasingly my favorite science reporter, of The Guardian, increasingly my favorite source for science news, briefly summarizes some interesting work with drug delivery and gene replacement therapy for cancer in the form of viral infection. Specifically, genes of interest can be packaged into adenoviruses and targeted to specific cells or tissues. This largely eliminates off-target effects, and for things like lung cancer, for which viruses can be administered via inhalation, viral delivery is more convenient than traditional methods. This method is being used with more frequency and in combination with traditional chemoradiation therapies to combat cancers. James reports another advantage:

The modified adenovirus exploits what Lawrence Young, who is leading the research project at the University of Birmingham, calls the cancer cell’s ‘achilles heel’. ‘It’s a little molecular switch [on the cell's surface],’ he said. ‘If you switch it on it does two things - it induces the cells to die, but it also provokes the body’s immune response to destroy the cancer. So it is a double whammy.’”

It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the future of cancer therapeutics, or whether bacterial infections may also be exploited to specifically target cancer-associated molecules.

Eye on Miami warns us of some potential dangers of housing nuclear reactors in south Florida, where plans to tap nuclear power sources seem to be in full swing. We’re taken on a nice trip through some of the history of nuclear reactors and their link to human disease:

It is probable that cancer rates have soared during the second half of the 20th century partly as a result of the radioactivity released initially from the massive Cold War atmospheric bomb testing during the 1950s and early 1960s, and more recently from nuclear power plants during the 1970s and continuing up to the present. … Since the beginning of the nuclear age over a half-century ago, human beings have been the unwitting subjects of a monu­mental, albeit unintended, radiation experiment initially involving atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and subsequently, radiation releases from nuclear power plants. It took decades before the links between other known carcinogens, such as as­bestos, tobacco, and vinyl chlorine, were formally acknowledged by medical professionals and government public health officials. There seems to be a growing momentum behind a similar pro­cess of scientific peer review and validation to assess the public health impact of internally-ingested environmental radiation re­leased by nuclear power reactors.”

It’s an interesting read to say the least.

Moving right along, two quick mentions: The first is from The Twinkies blog where we get a brief intro to the expanding base of literature in support of the fact that breast milk may contain antitumor compounds, namely alpha-lactalbumin. Good to know. Yet another reason to love boobs. Second, a great post from The Primate Diaries about some of the prouder moments in the history of human experimentation. Definitely worth a read.

To wrap things up, The Stupid Cancer Blog, the weblog of the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation For Young Adults, reminds us that we as cancer researchers still have a long way to go toward making people better and finding cures. Because I do research in the area of lung cancer, which has made essentially no progress in treatment outcomes over the last 30 years, I am reminded of this constantly. However, TSCB tells us that this is especially true of young adult patients. Who should tackle this problem? Young adults themselves:

When I was diagnosed with brain cancer 12 years ago while a College senior, I was given 50% chance to live for five years. You’d figure that, 12 years later, with all of the progress we’ve made, should I or anyone else get that same brain cancer today, that 50% would be a lot higher. It isn’t – and the same would be true if I had leukemia, colon cancer, breast cancer, osteosarcoma or any other cancer. Bottom line – if you are diagnosed between 15 and 39 today, just pretend it’s 1977 when disco was king and the average 5-year remission was 50%. … Will no one answer the call of young adult cancer research? Because unless someone does something, in another 12 years, whoever gets diagnosed with my brain cancer will still only have a 50% chance. Wake up GenX/Y’ers – this is our cancer, our fight, our calling. We have to take care of our own because no one else does. No one has yet risen to the occasion until we figure out how to turn this cause into the next ’so-retarded-yet-I-can’t-look-away’ rodent video. Yes, we’re invincible and ‘this can’t possibly happen to us’ – but it can, it does and it’s scary as hell, especially since there’s been no progress in 30 years. Let’s rethink where we donate our time, our talent and our money. Does your cancer charity care about young adults? Do they simply get it? Do you even have a cancer charity?”

I would strongly encourage you to visit the whole entry and the Foundation website itself. Then, once you’ve done that, think about focusing your efforts on the young adults with cancer. They need our help.

Postscript: The AC from the Bayblab just reminded me that in their recent podcast episode (12.1), available on their home page or on iTunes, they have an interesting discussion about photodynamic therapy for the treatment of cancer. This method involves local or systemic uptake of a photoreactive chemical that is sensitive to light of a certain wavelength, which, when applied, activates this chemical inside cancer cells, and some other crazy magic stuff happens, and then you pray a little, and then poof!—cancer’s gone. and creates a potent form of reactive oxygen species that ideally results in localized cell death. It’s by no means a new technology—it’s been around for nearly a century—but it seems to have gained popularity in recent years. At any rate, it’s an interesting discussion on their podcast, so check it out.

That’s it for the second edition of the Cancer Research Blog Carnival. Hope you enjoyed it! Stay tuned for the next edition in early November, and get in touch with someone over at the Bayblab if you’re interested in hosting this sometime.