Word: melanoma
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...excitement was running especially high last week, as encouraging news poured out of several labs all at once. From Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia came word that an experimental vaccine had given patients unusually long remissions from advanced melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. From Canada's McMaster University came a report identifying a telltale enzyme found in cancer cells -- but conspicuously absent from most normal cells. If cancer researchers can find a way to deactivate this enzyme, known as telomerase, they may at last have the magic bullet they have long been seeking. Equally tantalizing was the article...
...tumors survive the turbulent voyage through the bloodstream, notes experimental oncologist Ann Chambers of the London Regional Cancer Centre in Ontario. But those that do eventually slip through blood-vessel walls with ease. Using a video camera attached to a microscopic lens, Chambers has watched in wonder as melanoma and breast-cancer cells, injected into mice, become lodged in capillary walls, then crawl out into the liver. Three days later, her camera resolves the spidery shapes of tiny metastatic growths. The lesson, Chambers believes, is depressingly clear. Cancer cells zip in and out of blood vessels so readily that, once...
...Experiments with mice indicate that sunscreens may not help prevent melanoma even though they protect against sunburn. By giving sunbathers a false sense of security, sunscreens may actually prolong exposure to damaging ultraviolet radiation...
...vectors may not have to be viruses. Some researchers are working on ways to inject DNA directly into human cells. To treat patients with malignant melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, a team led by Dr. Gary Nabel at the University of Michigan encased a tumor-fighting gene in liposomes, harmless little bubbles of fat. The genes found their way into the proper cells, and in at least one case the tumors shrank...
...Michigan's Dr. Gary Nabel, the researchers treated five patients with melanoma, a deadly skin cancer. The tumors were injected with the gene HLA-B7, which produces a protein that can help the immune system fight the cancer. In all five patients, the genes safely entered the tumor cells and began making protein, and in one case the tumors shrank. The technique is no miracle cure, but the experiment adds a promising new weapon to the arsenal of genetic medicine...