Category Archives: Transhuman News

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

3-Nov-2014

Contact: Allison Hydzik hydzikam@upmc.edu 412-647-9975 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences @UPMCnews

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 3, 2014 Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) protect against the development of colorectal cancer by inducing cell suicide pathways in intestinal stem cells that carry a certain mutated and dysfunctional gene, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the School of Medicine. The findings were published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have long known from animal studies and clinical trials that use of NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, lowers the risk of developing intestinal polyps, which can transform into colon cancer. But they have not known why, said senior investigator Lin Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, Pitt School of Medicine, and UPCI, a partner with UPMC CancerCenter.

"Our study identifies a biochemical mechanism that could explain how this preventive effect occurs," he said. "These findings could help us design new drugs to prevent colorectal cancer, which is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country."

The research team performed experiments in animal models and examined tumor samples from patients who had taken NSAIDs and those who hadn't. They found that NSAIDs activate the so-called death receptor pathway, which selectively triggers a suicide program in intestinal stem cells that have a mutation in the APC gene that renders the cells dysfunctional. Healthy cells lack the mutation, so NSAIDs cause them no harm. In that manner, the drugs instigate the early auto-destruction of cells that could lead to precancerous polyps and tumors.

"We want to use our new understanding of this mechanism as a starting point to design better drugs and effective cancer prevention strategies for those at high risk of colon cancer," Dr. Zhang said. "Ideally, we could harness the tumor-killing traits of NSAIDs and avoid possible side effects that can occur with their chronic use, such as gastrointestinal bleeding and ulcers."

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The research team included lead author Brian Leibowitz, Ph.D., and Jian Yu, Ph.D., of UPCI and the Pitt's Department of Pathology, as well as others from UPCI and Pitt School of Medicine; Sichuan University, China; INCELL Corp, San Antonio, Texas; and Indiana University School of Medicine. The project was funded by National Institutes of Health grants CA106348, CA121105, CA172136, CA129829 and DK085570, and the American Cancer Society.

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NSAIDs prevent colon cancer by inducing death of intestinal stem cells that have mutation

Published November 04, 2014

Workers prepare traditional Chinese herbal medicines at Beijing's Capital Medical University Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital May 25, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that some people have hot constitutions, making them prone to fever and inflammation in parts of the body, while others tend to have cold body parts and get chills.

Such Eastern-rooted ideas have been developed over thousands of years of experience with patients. But they arent backed up by much scientific data.

Now researchers in some the most highly respected universities in China, and increasingly in Europe and the U.S., are wedding Western techniques for analyzing complex biological systems to the Chinese notion of seeing the body as a networked whole. The idea is to study how genes or proteins interact throughout the body as a disease develops, rather than to examine single genes or molecules.

Traditional Chinese medicine views disease as complete a pattern as possible, says Jennifer Wan, a professor in the school of biological sciences at the University of Hong Kong who studies traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM. Western medicine tends to view events or individuals as discrete particles. But one gene or biological marker alone typically doesnt yield comprehensive understanding of disease, she says.

To reach these goals, the overall quality of research on traditional Chinese medicine must improve. With studies of Chinese herbal remedies, for instance, rarely are scientists expected to provide authentication of herbs theyre studying, which makes it difficult to know whats really in the concoctions. This hurdle also makes it harder for other scientists to replicate the findings, says Qihe Xu, a professor in renal medicine at Kings College London. Dr. Xu served as the coordinator of a recent 200-scientist consortium to study good practices for studying traditional Chinese medicine, dubbed GP-TCM.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.

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Researchers push to back traditional Chinese medicine with more data