Developing successful treatments for HCC and NASH
Posted 28th October 2019 by Liv Sewell
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most prevalent cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide.[1] There is not currently a successful therapy to treat HCC in advanced stages.[2] NASH is a primary risk factor for liver cancer.
Devanand Sarkar and his team have uncovered the molecular mechanisms leading to NASH and HCC, shedding light on the connections between obesity and cancer. He is leveraging this knowledge to develop targeted treatments for both NASH and advanced HCC. We asked him to give us a brief insight into his work ahead of his presentation at the 3rd Global NASH Congress, 2020.
Taking biomarker research to a new level
Posted 21st October 2019 by Liv Sewell
Ahead of the 6th Digital Pathology and AI Congress: Europe in December, we are revisiting Professor Inti Zlobec’s research, presented at last year’s Congress, which is opening a whole field of digital pathology research. Zlobec’s research applies the latest digital pathology technology to produce high-quality tissue microarrays for biomarker analysis.
Connecting Cancer Biology to Clinical Oncology: Still a World to Win
Posted 14th May 2018 by Jane Williams
Our understanding of the aberrant biological pathways (oncogenic pathways) that are involved in the formation and progression of cancers has increased with huge leaps in the last decades of cancer research. The ever-increasing knowledge was and still is accompanied by the development of increasing numbers of precision drugs, tailored to neutralize these aberrations.
Dynamic Microenvironments: Finding the right cancer therapy
Posted 12th July 2017 by Jane Williams
With so many promising cancer therapies emerging from research labs, a key challenge for biomedical researchers is to develop tools that accurately predict treatment efficacy against a patient’s specific cancer, thereby avoiding subjecting the patient to a trial and error process to find the best drug.
Upcoming Developments in Precision Medicine
Posted 8th May 2017 by Jane Williams
Future of immunotherapies
Immunotherapies are on the fast growth trajectory which will be moderated based on responder groups, toxicity and efficacy results and high costs and increasingly used in combination therapies. The overall immune oncology checkpoint inhibitor market was over $2.0 billion and is set to grow to $14 billion by 2018.
Cross-Cultural Research into Microbiome Therapeutics for Cancer
Posted 31st March 2017 by Jane Williams
While microbiome therapeutics to support healthy gut function have garnered the lion’s share of attention, exciting approaches to oncology and anti-inflammatory therapeutics presage a new golden age for drug development, akin to the early commercialisation of chemically synthesised antibiotics from soil biofilms in the mid-20th century.
Aflatoxin Binding by Probiotic Bacteria
Posted 22nd March 2017 by Jane Williams
The term ‘probiotic’ comes from the Greek words ‘προ’ and ‘βιοτος’, which mean ‘for life’. In 1953, the ‘probiotic’ term was introduced by Kollath as organic and inorganic supplements necessary to restore health to patients suffering a form of malnutrition resulting from eating too much highly refined food (Hamilton-Miller et al., 2003).
Synthetic Biology and Cancer Treatment: Bottlenecks to Translation
Posted 16th November 2016 by Jane Williams
Karmella Haynes, at the Arizona State University, is one of the first synthetic biologists to engineer chromatin. It is a development that could ultimately treat diseases like cancer, through enabling large-scale changes in gene expression.