April 2001

A biochemist's unintended wander into gene therapy may have achieved one of gene therapy's long-sought goals: a way to deliver cytocidal genes to metastatic cancer cells dispersed throughout the body while leaving normal cells unharmed. Fred Hall of the department of surgery at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, has developed an ingenious seek-and-destroy cancer vector. What makes Hall's attempt at tumor-targeted gene delivery out of the ordinary is that his vector doesn't hom

The Mormons' religious beliefs have proven to be quite a boon for cancer epidemiologists. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, following religious tenets, have meticulously recorded their family trees for centuries. Recognizing the research value of such data, Mark Skolnick, chief scientific officer at Myriad Genetics Inc. in Salt Lake City, computerized those records at the church's family history library 25 years ago. Recently, researchers had high hopes that the data wo

Just a few short decades ago, cell biologists--essentially relegated to the tissue culture equivalent of Flatland--couldn't imagine working in three dimensions without sacrificing their subjects, much less having the ability to view the impact of their work in real time, over time. Now, state-of-the-art imaging technologies and new biological reagents and probes are sending biologists and other scientists on fantastic voyages into the molecular world of living animals to watch how cancer develop

The $4.18 billion National Cancer Institute budget request submitted by the Bush administration to Congress in April for fiscal year 2002 amounts to an 11.7 percent boost of $439 million over the current year's appropriation. The package, however, falls $850 million short of the amount NCI sought in its own "bypass budget" proposal. NCI requested $5.03 billion, a whopping 34 percent boost of $1.27 billion. The bypass budget is so-called because, under the National Cancer Act of 1971, NCI's bud

With true success stories in cancer treatment so rare, the flood of recent papers validating the 1998 Food and Drug Administration approval of Herceptin (trastuzumab) stands out.1-3 In a broader sense, the drug's rocky road from conception to clinic also validates the concept of rational drug design, an approach that will become more common as pharmaceutical companies mine human genome information. "It is extremely gratifying to have gone though the first laboratory determinations, to clinical

Although the research has only just begun at the newly established In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers, or ICMICs, the researchers have jumped in and are covering many cancer research bases. Here are basic descriptions of activities under way at each of the centers. Massachusetts General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School At Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, virtually all imaging modalities are being put to the test, including optical near infrared fluorescence im

Although most of the studies now occurring in the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers (ICMICs) are focused on basic animal research, investigators aren't wasting any time in moving the power of in vivo molecular imaging to human patients.

With the potential for catching serious metabolic disorders before symptoms appear, medical laboratories in the United States are increasingly screening newborns using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) technology. A recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows about 500,000 newborns underwent such screening last year, up from 60,000 in 1996. This report, "Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Metabolic Disease Screening Among Newborns" (w

Ronald N. Kostoff1 and Henry I. Miller2 don't really disagree on the topic of caloric restriction; they merely disagree on the available means. Dr. Kostoff is probably correct that caloric restriction is "nature's design." Then again, Dr. Miller is correct when he notes that "like the rest of us, these test subjects couldn't eat just one." Ah, there's the rub. "Nature's design" is a bit more complicated than Dr. Kostoff wants to admit. The schoolmarmish, finger wagging tone of "the whole idea

In reference to Barry A. Palevitz's excellent commentary on animal slaughter,1 I completely agree that it is about time that we, humans, reconsider our attitude toward other animals or even other humans. The problem is perhaps much more fundamental than the market value of meat as a commodity. I think the present society does little to educate a child on the moral and humane aspects of life and society. Our major goal today is to make sure that our children grow up to be rich and famous. Throu

Medical miracles abound, yet cancer continues to be a complex and challenging problem. "Cancer" is actually a generic, catchall term for the malignant tumors that are found in well over a hundred different diseases, but the basic concept is simple enough--a gene goes wrong and a tumor grows. Unfortunately, the reality is more complicated, involving an intricate sequence of phenomena and interactions in just a handful of the body's tens-of-trillions of cells. And therein lies the problem for rese

Microarray Analysis Software Packages     Courtesy of SpotfireSpotfire's Array Explorer Gene expression profiling using DNA microarrays generates reams of data. But as is so often the case, it's not the quantity but the quality that matters: Gene expression data is useless unless biologically meaningful information can be extracted and presented in some readily understandable fashion. The production of this meaningful information, involving many facets of image processing, statistic

As one of the leading causes of death in the United States, cancer continues to challenge those working in the field. Despite long-ongoing research, much work remains before cancer is eradicated. Really a large family of diseases, cancer requires diverse methods for treatment and diagnosis that will only come with a better knowledge of the basic biology of the affected systems. Advances in understanding the causes, new techniques for drug discovery, and increased funding of cancer research have

In America, the ratio of children under 18 to adults over 65 is currently about 2:1. By 2030, it will be almost equal.1 Those statistics are among many offered by sociologists who study demography and employment to help them make the case that the aging of the so-called baby boom generation might exert a significant impact on the workforce in coming years. Already in the world of science, particularly in academia, changes have begun that could foreshadow an emerging new workplace structure featu

You say tomato, but Phyllis Bowen, nutrition and dietetics professor at University of Illinois, Chicago, says possible prostate cancer deterrent and a great source of research funds. Recently added to the list of project directors for the National Foundation for Cancer Research, Bowen and collaborator, Konstantin Christov will use $300,000 in NFCR funding to examine the role of lycopene (a strong antioxidant that gives tomatoes their red color) in apoptosis of prostate cancer cells and hyperplas

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