The bacterial components of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene scissors trigger an immune response. Consequently, this method delivers unreliable results in certain mouse models for cancer.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now developed gene scissors that are camouflaged from the immune system and used them to identify factors that promote the development of metastases.

The newly developed CRISPR method can be put to universal use in medical research and development.

People with type 1 diabetes (previously called juvenile diabetes) are 4.29 times more likely to develop bladder cancer, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The new analysis is the first to control for the effects of tobacco smoking, a factor that likely obscured the heightened risk in earlier studies. Because smoking is a strong contributor to bladder cancer, research designed to identify other risk factors must control for—or separate out—the influences of smoking from influences of other proposed causes. But no prior studies on type 1 diabetes and cancer had done so. The research team suspected that people with type 1 diabetes may smoke less than the general population. To investigate that idea the research team gathered data from authoritative sources such as the World Health Organization to estimate smoking prevalence in populations where the original studies were conducted. The patterns the team found using a technique called meta-regression supported the team’s hypothesis, helping explain why earlier analyses failed to detect a connection. After accounting for patterns of smoking, they estimated that people with type 1 diabetes were 4.29 times more likely to get bladder cancer.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today was awarded over $29 million from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) in support of impactful prevention programs, groundbreaking cancer research efforts and faculty recruitment.

HSP90 buffers certain BRCA1 mutations, allowing them to persist in humans and promote resistance to PARP inhibitor treatments

Low-dose HSP90 inhibition restored PARP inhibitor sensitivity in HSP90-buffered BRCA1-mutant cells

Researchers identified specific features of HSP90 buffering to determine patients most likely to benefit from combination treatment