Cancer research 'milestone' at Cambridge

Scientists say they now have a near-perfect picture of the genetic events which cause breast cancer.

The study, published in Nature, has been described as a "milestone" moment that could help unlock new ways of treating and preventing the disease.
The largest study of its kind unpicked practically all the errors that cause healthy breast tissue to go rogue.
Cancer Research UK said the findings were an important stepping-stone to new drugs for treating cancer.To understand the causes of the disease, scientists have to understand what goes wrong in our DNA that makes healthy tissue turn cancerous.

 The international team looked at all 3 billion letters of people's genetic code - their entire blueprint of life - in 560 breast cancers.

They uncovered 93 sets of instructions, or genes, that if mutated, can cause tumours. Some have been discovered before, but scientists expect this to be the definitive list, barring a few rare mutations.

'Important information'

Professor Sir Mike Stratton, the director of the Sanger Institute in Cambridge which led the study, said it was a "milestone" in cancer research.
He told the BBC: "There are about 20,000 genes in the human genome. It turns out, now we have this complete view of breast cancer - there are 93 of those [genes] that if mutated will convert a normal breast cell into a breast cancer cell. That is an important piece of information.
"We hand that list over to the universities, the pharmaceuticals, the biotech companies to start developing new drugs because those mutated genes and their proteins are targets for new therapeutics."
"There are now many drugs that have been developed over the last 15 years against such targets which we know work."

 ACK: Science Photo Library
                              

Mutations in our DNA can cause cancer

Mutations leave unique scars - known as mutational signatures - on our DNA and that allowed the team to identify 12 types of damage, which cause mutations in the breast.
Some are related to family risk, but most are still unexplained.

One class of mutation seems to stem from the body attacking viruses by mutating their genetic code, but also suffering collateral damage in the process.
Whether any of these processes can be altered is still unknown in this nascent field, but researchers hope the findings could eventually lead to ways of reducing the risk of cancers.
Dr. Serena Nik-Zainal, another researcher at the Sanger Institute, added: "In the future, we'd like to be able to profile individual cancer genomes so that we can identify the treatment most likely to be successful for a woman or man diagnosed with breast cancer.
"It is a step closer to personalised health care for cancer."

Dr. Emma Smith, from Cancer Research UK, said: "This study brings us closer to getting a complete picture of the genetic changes at the heart of breast cancer and throws up intriguing clues about the key biological processes that go wrong in cells and drive the disease.
"Understanding these underlying processes has already led to more effective treatments for patients, so genetic studies on this scale could be an important stepping stone towards developing new drugs and boosting the number of people who survive cancer."

'Stunning' operation regenerates eye's lens

A pioneering procedure to regenerate the eye has successfully treated children with cataracts in China.

More than half of all cases of blindness are caused by cataracts - the clouding of the eye's lens.

An implanted lens is normally needed to restore sight, but the operation described in Nature activated stem cells in the eye to grow a new one.

Article title: Lens regeneration using endogenous stem cells with gain of visual function

Experts describe the breakthrough as one of the finest achievements in regenerative medicine.

The lens sits just behind the pupil and focuses light on to the retina.

About 20 million people are blind because of cataracts, which become more common with age - although some children are born with them.  Conventional treatment uses ultrasound to soften and break up the lens, which is then flushed out.

An artificial intraocular lens must then be implanted back into the eye, but this can result in complications, particularly in children.

The technique developed by scientists at the Sun Yat-sen University and the University of California, San Diego removes the cloudy cataract from inside the lens via a tiny incision.

Crucially it leaves the outer surface - called the lens capsule - intact.  This structure is lined with lens epithelial stem cells, which normally repair damage.  The scientists hoped that preserving them would regenerate the lens.

The team reported that tests on rabbits and monkeys were successful, so the approach was trialled in 12 children.  Within eight months the regenerated lens was back to the same size as normal.

Dr Kang Zhang, one of the researchers, said: "This is the first time an entire lens has been regenerated. The children were operated on in China and they continue to be doing very well with normal vision."

It also showed a dramatically lower complication rate "by almost every measure, supporting the superiority of the treatment"

However, he says larger trials are needed before it should become the standard treatment for patients.

Commenting on the findings, Prof Robin Ali from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, said the work was "stunning".

He told the BBC News website: "This new approach offers greatly improved prospects for the treatment of paediatric cataracts as it results in regeneration of a normal lens that grows naturally."

He said getting similar results in adults "is likely to be more difficult to achieve" but could "have a major impact".
View more on BBC/Health News 

New Ebola drug clears virus from monkeys - results published in 'Nature'

More than 26,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began

An experimental Ebola drug cured three monkeys intentionally infected with the virus, according to a study published in Nature magazine.

The development marks the first such success against the strain of Ebola that killed up to 10,000 people in West Africa’s 2014-2015 outbreak.

Although other experimental treatments appeared to help Ebola patients last year, especially in the United States, those one-time uses cannot prove efficacy against the “Makona” strain, since patients’ recovery might be due to other causes.

Similarly, drugs, including Mapp Biopharmaceutical’s ZMapp, cured monkeys in lab experiments, but in a strain of Ebola different from that responsible for the current outbreak, the worst ever recorded.

“We can’t say for certain that an experimental drug that works against one strain will work in another, even if they’re almost identical genetically,” said Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas Medical Branch, senior author of the study published in the journal Nature.

In the experiment, six rhesus monkeys were infected with huge doses of the Makona strain. Three days later, three received an infusion of a drug developed by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp, a cocktail of “small-interfering RNAs” (siRNAs) encapsulated in a fat droplet called a lipid nanoparticle.

The siRNAs bind to two of the virus’s seven genes, silencing them and thereby preventing the virus from replicating.

All three treated monkeys survived despite fevers and enormous blood levels of virus. 

The drug can be adapted to target any strain of Ebola and produced in as little as eight weeks (compared with the months required for ZMapp), Geisbert said, in what he called “plug and play”: sequence any Ebola genome and custom-make a siRNA cocktail.

“There is a need for treatments that can be quickly modified if the strain changes,” he said.

A clinical trial of the new cocktail began last month in Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. A study of an earlier version was partly halted after healthy volunteers developed side effects at high doses. 

Results from human trials with the drug are expected in the second half of this year.

Read more on Irish Times/ Health here

'Game-changing' antibiotic find

The decades-long drought in antibiotic discovery could be over after a breakthrough by US scientists.

Their novel method for growing bacteria has yielded 25 new antibiotics, with one deemed "very promising".

The last new class of antibiotics to make it to clinic was discovered nearly three decades ago.

The study, in the journal Nature, has been described as a "game-changer" and experts believe the antibiotic haul is just the "tip of the iceberg".

The heyday of antibiotic discovery was in the 1950s and 1960s, but nothing found since 1987 has made it into doctor's hands.

Since then microbes have become incredibly resistant. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis ignores nearly everything medicine can throw at it.

Back to soil

The researchers, at the Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, turned to the source of nearly all antibiotics - soil.

This is teeming with microbes, but only 1% can be grown in the laboratory.

The team created a "subterranean hotel" for bacteria. One bacterium was placed in each "room" and the whole device was buried in soil.

It allowed the unique chemistry of soil to permeate the room, but kept the bacteria in place for study.

View Article:  A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance, 

View link to BBC/News for more information

Stem cell 'major discovery' claimed

A "revolutionary" new approach to creating stem cells in the laboratory could open up a new era of personalised medicine, it is claimed.

Scientists have shown it is possible to reprogramme cells into an embryonic-like state simply by altering their environment.

It means in principle that cells can have their developmental clock turned back without directly interfering with their genes - something never achieved before.

The cells become "pluripotent", having the potential ability to transform themselves into virtually any kind of tissue in the body, from brain to bone.

Reprogramming a patient's own cells in this way is seen as the Holy Grail of regenerative medicine.

It raises the prospect of repairing diseased and damaged organs with new healthy tissue that will not be rejected by the immune system.

Current methods of performing the same trick involve genetic manipulation, which carries with it a serious risk of triggering cancer.

But the new method described in the journal Nature requires no genetic tweaking.

For more information click here

View article in Nature : Stimulus-triggered fate conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency