How things are going…

April 17th, 2008 | Published in Life, Medicine, Science | View blog reactions

School is over. It’d better be, after five years of undergrad + co-op. So the time has come for me to put my hands on this website, write some posts, fill in the pages…and figure out the back end.

While I try to figure out something really interesting to talk about, I am going to pick some science news for you (from Science Daily). Read along, I am sure you’ll find something interesting…such as the news that reducing your caloric intake can help you prevent cancer. This not completely unexpected, as it is also known that a reduced-calorie diet also improves longevity. But are you, are we, going to start depriving us of food (and thinking about food 50% of the time) in exchange of a reduced chance to contract cancer? I honestly doubt it.

Stem Cell Marker Controls Two Key Cancer Pathways

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have discovered that a gene associated with human breast stem cells can stimulate development of mammary cells by activating two critical cancer pathways. They say this finding, reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), provides new evidence that breast cancer can arise from stem cells and that targeting this gene might provide a new way to treat cancers of the breast as well as other tumor types.

More here.

Molecule Prompts Blood Stem Cells To Help Repair Heart Damage In Animal Model

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have for the first time used drug-treated blood stem cells to repair heart damage in an animal model, results that might point to methods for healing injuries from heart attacks or disease.

More here.

Calorie Restricted Diet Prevents Pancreatic Inflammation And Cancer, Study Suggests

Prevention of weight gain with a restricted calorie diet sharply reduced the development of pancreatic lesions that lead to cancer in preclinical research reported April 15 by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.

More here.

Ovarian Cancer Stem Cells Identified, Characterized

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have identified, characterized and cloned ovarian cancer stem cells and have shown that these stem cells may be the source of ovarian cancer’s recurrence and its resistance to chemotherapy.

More here.