For the increasing number of women that survive breast cancer, many older, long-term survivors remain frail. A new study out today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that in a given year over half of these highly frail survivors had no Medicare home health care.

A joint research group led by Ryo Tanifuji and Hiroki Oguri from the University of Tokyo and Yoshikazu Tanaka from Tohoku University has successfully visualized SacC, an enzyme that plays a key role in building the complex five-ring core of safracin B. This core structure is shared with trabectedin, a drug used to treat soft tissue sarcoma. While getting a clear picture of the enzyme in its working state is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, the method pioneered during the project might have the widest reach. With its potential applicability to a broad range of related enzymes that produce medically useful compounds, the approach could open new avenues for research into not only optimizing already existing compounds but also creating new ones. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).  

Explore new St. Jude research uncovering that degrading EP300 and inhibiting AKT in combination may synergize to treat sensitive metastatic osteosarcomas.

Transforming a soybean processing by-product into an innovative material for skin protection and repair. This is the prospect outlined by a study that used okara, a residue from the production of tofu and soy-based beverages, to obtain a bioactive, biodegradable, 3D-printable biomaterial. A solution that could contribute, in the future, to the development of devices for the local treatment of pain associated with breastfeeding and post-operative recovery following breast cancer surgery.

Researchers at City of Hope have uncovered an immune pathway that may contribute to radiation-related lung damage and have identified a potential strategy to block it. Published today in Nature Communications, the insights from the preclinical study could lead to new treatments that prevent radiation from harming healthy lung tissue and improve patients’ quality of life.