tumors

To doctors and nurses working 75 years ago, when the UK’s National Health Service was founded, a modern ward would be completely unrecognizable. Fast-forward into the future, and hospitals are likely to look very different again. These are some of the changes you’re likely to see in years to come.Fully autonomous surgical robotsResearchers at Johns Hopkins University are developing a surgical robot capable of performing surgeries fully autonomously. The robot is equipped with 3D vision and a machine learning algorithm…

Your brain is your body's castle, protected by a near-impenetrable moat known as the blood-brain barrier.This fortress of boundary cells attempts to keep toxins and pathogens flowing through the rest of your body away from the sensitive tissues that make life and death decisions about the body's functions.Unfortunately, what makes it so efficient at blocking meddling materials also tends to block medications tasked with helping us heal, making the barrier a double-edged sword when it comes to treating diseases such as…

The results were replicated across animal models and cancer types and could bring new, individualized cancer diagnostics, treatment to patients.The new noninvasive approach is fast, cost-effective, and holds potential for treating a diverse range of cancers.Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) has emerged as a highly promising form of immunotherapy for treating advanced melanoma. By utilizing immune cells sourced from the patient’s own tumors, this therapy offers a novel treatment alternative for cancer patients, potentially…

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University say they’ve developed a gel-based treatment that might be incredibly effective at treating an often-fatal brain cancer. In a study of mice released this week, the gel in combination with surgery was found to eradicate 100% of glioblastoma tumors. It will take more research and safety testing before we can think of trying out this method in humans, however.Mental Health Apps Are a Privacy NightmareGlioblastoma is the most common form of brain cancer, accounting for around half of all…

The researchers designed prodrugs with bottlebrush-like structures based on a class of compounds called imidazoquinolines (IMDs). Credit: Courtesy of the researchersIn a new study, immunostimulatory drugs slowed tumor growth without producing systemic inflammation.<span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>MIT</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious…

Artistic rendering illustrating how the mechanical nanosurgery, a new approach developed by SickKids and University of Toronto researchers, targets cancer cells from inside the tumor, sparing healthy tissue in the process. Credit: Created by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) research team using MidjourneyMechanical nanosurgery, a new approach developed by scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto, uses magnetic carbon nanotubes to target and destroy chemoresistant glioblastoma…

Cancer cells are notorious for evading detection by the body’s immune system, making them difficult to treat. But a promising new type of genetically engineered T-cell that can effectively destroy solid cancer tumors may be just what the doctor ordered.Killer T-cells are an important part of the immune response. They are the body’s security guards, actively patroling for things that don’t belong, such as infections and other diseases. Killer T-cells possess surface receptors that recognize and latch on to foreign invaders…

The figure shows the interactions between immune cells (white) and tumor cells harboring persistent mutations (red) in the context of immunotherapy (white) as a chess match captured in 5 snapshots. The piece placement is pulled from a Kasparov vs Deep Blue game. Credit: Christina Kostandi and Valsamo AnagnostouCancer specialists have attempted to utilize the number of mutations in a tumor, known as the tumor mutation burden (TMB), to forecast a patient’s response to immunotherapy, with varying degrees of success.…

Light-guided cancer surgery has been in development for some time with varying degrees of success, from light therapy to glow-in-the-dark tumors and the development of compounds that can illuminate tumors. Now, scientists are confident they’ve developed a new technique of molecular imaging that sees tumors lit by short-wave infrared light in such detail that surgeons can differentiate between the cancerous tumor and healthy tissue.Researchers at the Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS)…

Cancer tumors are particularly adept at evading the body’s immune response, making treatment difficult. A new study has genetically engineered a common gut bacteria, enabling it to seek out and destroy cancer tumors from the inside.There are multiple ways tumors can survive by evading the body’s immune responses. One is to prevent immune cells from getting involved in chemotaxis, the process by which immune cells detect a tumor and migrate towards it to mount an attack. Chemotaxis is driven by cytokines, tiny proteins…