Here First - Science and Technology Blog

The world of medicine witnessed a new medical breakthrough: a 7 year old girl was miraculously healed from a serious form of leukemia with a disabled form of HIV. Emma Whitehead was diagnosed with acute form leukemia and she underwent every conventional treatment for long two years. The parents were really desperate at that point, so they agreed to enroll their daughter into an experimental program.  Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have perfected a treatment that will reprogram the immune system, so it will destroy every cancer cell in the body. The treatment is extremely hard, and it almost killed the little girl. But, miraculously, she resisted to the harsh cure. Moreover, her aggressive form of leukemia was cured. 7 months after that treatment phase passed and Emma's condition is still in remission. She was not the only girl who tried this, and the experimental treatment showed amazing results in more adults. The scientists who developed this treatmen...

A team of neuroscientists researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , New York, USA, led by Professor Pavel Osten, has developed a new technique to create images of the entire brain, after having conducted experiments on the brains of mice. The new technique takes successive images of brain sections precisely, using a laser microscope with two photons. The resulting images are then computer processed, resulting in a three-dimensional image of the entire brain. Developed in conjunction with the TissueVision company, new brain scanning technique was called Serial Two-Photon Tomography - STP . Study leader, Professor Pavel Osten argues that this new technology is extremely accurate and is sufficiently developed to be already used in specific procedures. The researchers tested the process at different resolutions, from 1-2 microns to less than one micron and obtained a complete set of data regarding the studied brain from 6.5-8.5 hours and a standby time considerably reduced c...

Cancer is one of the heaviest problems confusing modern medicine. Recently, Researchers have cracked the genetic code for two of the most common cancer types. This is the beginning of a global effort to catalog all the genes that go amiss among the many types of human cancer, the BBC reports. Too much time spent under the sun apparently leads to most of the 30,000 mutations contained within the DNA code for melanoma, or skin cancer. Outside experts told the BBC that no previous study has managed to link specific mutations to their causes. Researchers also discovered more than 23,000 errors in the lung cancer DNA code, most of them induced by cigarette smoke exposure. A heavy smoker could get one new mutation, potentially harmless but as well possibly a cancer trigger, for every 15 cigarettes that they smoke. The fresh cancer correspondences could conduct to better blood exams for diagnosing the respective cancers, also as better targeted drugs. Blood tests could even break the ...

Cancer has become a major cause of death worldwide. This ruthless disease is characterized by abnormal cell proliferation in a normal tissue anatomy within the body. All body organs may be affected, but the most common forms of the disease is breast cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer. Exhaust gas from diesel engines favors cancer Exhaust inhalation from diesel engines favourizes the development of new blood vessels that contribute to the development of cancerous tumors. A group of researchers from Ohio University, U.S., reached this conclusion after a scientific study done on laboratory mice. A relatively small amount of inhaled diesel particles can easily penetrate the body and can go directly to organs and tissues. This study wanted to reconstitute the conditions in which a person would inhale the particles in an urban environment with traffic. After two weeks of exposure to diesel emanations for six hours a day, five days a week, the mice have...

A simple drop of blood or speck of tissue will be all that takes in order to diagnose cancers and assess their response to treatment, research suggests. Researchers at Stanford University, California, have developed a machine that separates cancer-associated proteins by means of their electric charge, which varies according to modifications on the protein’s surface. This new technology can be the end of classic surgical biopsy. The new method allows cancer proteins to be analysed in tiny samples read more here

Scientists say they have identified an enzyme that helps cancer spread around the body. Cancer metastasis is responsible for 90% of cancer-related deaths. Why? Metastasis means the spread of cancer. Cancer cells can break away from a primary tumor and enter the bloodstream or lymphatic system (the system that produces, stores, and carries the cells that fight infections). That is how cancer cells spread to other parts of the body. Institute of Cancer Research scientists have found that an enzyme called LOX is crucial in promoting metastasis, Cancer Cell journal reports. "This new discovery provides real hope that we can develop a drug which will fight the spreading of cancer." said Lead researcher Dr Janine Erler. The scientists hope that drugs to block this enzyme's action will stop the spread of cancer. They studied breast cancer in mice, and hope that their findings will apply to humans with other types of cancer. LOX (lysyl oxidase) works by sending out signals to pr...

 There is a  fluorescent compound attached to live cancer cells that enables scientists to determine either the growth or containment of the disease. A team of scientists from Japan and the United States monitored during this study the spread of breast and ovarian cancer cells in living mice. For this procedure they used a small camera known as an endoscope. The japanese team continued to use Roche AG's Zenapax (another cancer drug) and an endoscope to obtain images of ovarian cancer tumours that had spread inside the abdominal cavities of the living mice. According to the study, which was reported in the British journal Nature Medicine after half an hour after the cancer cells were killed, the substance stopped glowing.  Dr Yobayashi said: "Our design concept is very versatile and can be used to detect many types of cancer. This is very great news in research for cancer cure. via  telegraph.co.uk

Scientists have grown eggs from tissue taken from five-year-old girls meaning future childhood cancer sufferers could go on to have children of their own. There is known that children and young people who go through cancer are left infertile by the treatment in most of the cases. They are faced with having to use donated eggs and sperm or adopting to have their own family. The problem is very difficult for children who develop cancer before they reach puberty. The eggs or sperm cannot be freeze at this time. But we have good news! Scientists have managed to grow eggs in the lab using samples of ovarian tissue taken from girls as young as five. Immature eggs can be removed from the tissue and grown to maturity in special culture. The next step will be to see if they can be fertilised to create viable embryos. These could then be frozen and stored for future use or the unfertilised eggs could be frozen using the latest techniques which have proven more effective. Around 1,500 children un...