3D computer model helps screen millions of chemo drugs

Researchers have long used still images of proteins known to be related to recurring cancers in an attempt to understand exactly why these proteins make some chemotherapies fail.

Now, biochemists at Southern Methodist University are using a 3D computer model of the human protein P-glycoprotein -- believed to play a pivotal role in the failure of chemotherapy in many recurring cancers -- to screen more than 8 million potential drug compounds in the hunt for one that will help stop this failure.

"This has been a good proof-of-principle," biochemist John G. Wise said in a school news release. &… Read more

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Tiny oxygen generators improve cancer treatments

Radiation therapy requires oxygen to be effective, which makes cancers that tend to be hypoxic (meaning they are deprived of oxygen)--such as pancreatic and cervical cancers--harder to treat. (Tumors can become hypoxic for a few reasons, e.g. they grow so quickly they actually outgrow blood supply, or cells proliferate so many times that the density taxes the available oxygen.)

So researchers at Purdue have been building and testing tiny devices that can be implanted in tumors and then generate oxygen, thereby making the area far more susceptible to radiation and chemotherapy.… Read more

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NASA uses light to soothe chemo side effects

Originally developed in the early 1990s to promote plant growth on board space shuttles, the light technology behind NASA's Astroculture 3 is now being repurposed to help soothe the painful side effects that can result from chemotherapy and radiation treatment in patients with bone marrow and stem cell transplants.

The treatment device, called WARP 75, uses High Emissivity Aluminiferous Luminescent Substrate, or HEALS, which lets LED chips function at their maximum irradiance--the equivalent light energy of 12 suns from each of the device's 288 grain-of-salt-sized LEDs--without emitting heat.

Researchers studied the effects of the technology to treat oral mucositisRead more