2016 editions
- December 2016
Joao Incio on mechanisms to explain why obesity promotes cancer. - November 2016
Mike Stratton on how mutational changes in a cancer genome can point to the cause of the cancer. - October 2016
Ruth Muschel on a new target for treatments for colorectal cancer. - September 2016
Freddie Hamdy on the effectiveness of treatments for prostate cancer. - August 2016
Moshe Oren discusses the effects of the microenvironment on cancer cells. - July 2016
Richard Gilbertson on the 'bad luck hypothesis' for the cause of cancer. - June 2016
Key advances in clinical trials. - May 2016
Mark Lemmon on the underlying biochemistry of cancer. - April 2016
Roger Stupp on using alternating electric fields as treatment. - March 2016
Charlotte Vrinten on public perception of deaths from cancer. - February 2016
Guillermo Garcia-Manero on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). - December 2015/January 2016
Nazneen Rahman on germline genetic screening in ovarian cancer.
EJC News Focus – January 2015
Spectacular gains through synthetic lethality
Why is BRAF inhibition effective in melanoma treatment but not in colorectal cancer? Why might inhibition of an obscure kinase – which is not mutated in cancer – make all the difference? The answer, according to René Bernards (Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam), may be found using a systematic screening process which can unearth some unexpected partnerships in the pathways driving cancer.
He and his team are taking a scientific approach to combining novel agents, he told a plenary session at ESMO 2014 (Madrid, Spain). They take an established drug and, by systematically looking at the activity of each of the 518 kinases in the human genome, can work out which other pathway needs to be inhibited for best results. The synthetic lethality in the pathways is producing dramatic results in cell cultures, mice and the clinic.
In this EJC News Focus, Bernards describes the work and its potential to Helen Saul.