TORONTO – A study led by scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) reveals a new method of identifying drugs to treat children suffering from fatal cancers for which an effective treatment has not been found. Rather than developing a new drug from scratch, which is a complicated and time-consuming process, they tried a different approach: in the lab, they tested existing drugs on cancer stem cells from young patients with neuroblastoma,...
Physician-Scientist at Texas Children’s Cancer Center Receives $486,000 Grant to Advance Research in Childhood Cancer
HOUSTON, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Donald W. (Will) Parsons, M.D., a physician at Texas Children's Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, has been honored with a 2010 Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award. Dr. Parsons, who works in collaboration with Dr. Richard Gibbs at Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center, specializes...
Malignant gliomas are the most common subtype of primary brain tumor – and one of the deadliest. Even as doctors make steady progress treating other types of solid tumor cancers, from breast to prostate, the most aggressive form of malignant glioma, called a glioblastoma multiforme or GBM, has steadfastly defied advances in neurosurgery, radiation therapy and various conventional or novel drugs.
A large study focused on documenting the strength and fitness of childhood brain tumor survivors has found that many face health challenges as they age. The study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators showed that although most participants were young adults in their 20s, many functioned like people in their 60s, making them less likely to live independently or attend college.
An ingredient in the venom of the "deathstalker" scorpion could help gene therapy become an effective treatment for brain cancer, scientists are reporting. The substance allows therapeutic genes — genes that treat disease — to reach more brain cancer cells than current approaches, according to the study in ACS Nano, a monthly journal.
