Platinum complexes such as the well-known cisplatin are powerful antitumor medications. They cross the cell membrane and reach the nucleus, where they attach to DNA and stop cell growth. But how does cisplatin get to the nucleus? Italian researchers have now proven that a copper transport protein may play a critical role. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, they present their hypothesis about the transport mechanism.
The term Emotional Intelligence could be defined as the capacity to perceive, comprehend and regulate one’s own emotions and those of others so as to be able to distinguish between emotions and use this information as a guide for one’s thoughts and actions. One of the important benefits of developing this type of intelligence is the ability to learn how to interact with others and to face an ever changing social and cultural world more effectively.
The challenges that autistic patients face become more pronounced during adolescence, a crucial period when many kinds of social behaviours are developed and when these individuals can become more keenly aware of their relationship difficulties. A paper by Dr. Eric Fombonne, Head of the Division of Child Psychiatry at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), published in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders describes the effectiveness of social skills training groups for autistic adolescents.
Two recent commentaries appearing in the November issue of Nutrition Reviews find that the introduction of flour fortified with folic acid into common foods was followed by an increase in colon cancer diagnoses in the U.S. and Canada. The two new review articles address these recent findings and provide an overview of the existing evidence on folic acid fortification and the associated policy issues.
Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is a fatal systemic disease featuring acute onset, serious conditions, high incidence of complications and 20 – 30% mortality, mainly due to multiple organ failure at its early stage. The pathogenesis of SAP is closely related to factors such as activation of pancreatin, release of inflammatory mediators, microcirculation disturbance and apoptosis.
When a person learns they are suffering from cancer, the first question in their mind is always: “How much time do I have?” Unfortunately, this is a question to which the researchers have long been seeking an absolute answer. Tumor progression to local invasion and metastasis are the most relevant processes for prognosis, and predictive factors for survival are sometimes the only hope for cancer patients. Tumor suppressors and adhesion molecules represent one of the primary challenges in cancer therapy.
Patients with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) have a risk of frequent recurrence and deterioration of liver function, even after curative treatment for the primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This unfavorable prognosis is associated with a sustained HCV infection. Thus, both the prevention of HCC recurrence and the preservation of liver function are high priorities when trying to improve the prognosis of patients with HCV-related HCC. Antiviral therapy for chronic hepatitis C (HCV) after treatment for primary HCC is the essential factor required for an improved prognosis.
The largely unnoticed collision of the global epidemics of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) has exploded to create a deadly co-epidemic that is rapidly spreading in sub-Saharan Africa. However, health systems cannot adequately diagnose, treat, or contain the co-epidemic due to unanswered scientific and medical questions, according to a report issued today by The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research and amplified by experts from leading global health organizations.
A protein in the pancreas is giving researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine their first chance at cracking the code that determines how diabetes develops during pregnancy, a finding that could lead to new treatments for all forms of diabetes.
Cancer cells treated with carbon nanotubes can be destroyed by non-invasive radio waves that heat up the nanotubes while sparing untreated tissue, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University has shown in preclinical experiments.