Scientists at a Duke University medical school in Singapore have found a new way to study cancer that could be very useful for developing targeted therapies against cancer and possibly many other diseases.

Scientists have identified about two dozen genes that control embryonic stem cell fate. The genes may either prod or restrain stem cells from drifting into a kind of limbo, they suspect. The limbo lies between the embryonic stage and fully differentiated, or specialized, cells, such as bone, muscle or fat.

The effective treatment of many forms of cancer continues to pose a major problem for medicine. Many tumours fail to respond to standard forms of chemotherapy or become resistant to the medication.

Scientists from Aberdeen, Luxembourg and the South Pacific have studied the properties of natural products derived from animals found in Fijian waters, and shown that not only may certain compounds have potential use in anti-cancer therapies, but others may also be useful for improving drug delivery, currently one of the most significant problems faced by medical researchers.

The first oral, broad-spectrum angiogenesis inhibitor, specially formulated through nanotechnology, shows promising anticancer results in mice, report researchers from Children's Hospital Boston. Findings were published online on June 29 by the journal Nature Biotechnology.

A gene radiotherapy system that detects and treats cancer cells that are resistant to traditional forms of chemotherapy and radiation showed success in the laboratory and could eventually prove beneficial for cancer patients, according to researchers at SNM's 55th Annual Meeting. The new system targets oxygen-deficient hypoxic cancer cells that have activated a gene known as HIF-1, which ensures the cells' survival and makes them unresponsive to most current treatments.

A new study identifies a signaling molecule that plays a major role in radiation-induced intestinal damage. The research, published by Cell Press in the June issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, may lead to new strategies for protecting normal tissues from radiation during cancer therapies.

It has been reported for the first time in Germany that healthy ovarian tissue has been taken from a non-pregnant woman with cancer and then re-implanted after cancer therapy. The patient is now 32 years old and could become pregnant as a result.

Clinical researchers at Scottsdale Healthcare and TGen today announced the results of two clinical trials that show promise for patients battling cancer.

Researchers from the Nano Machine Center at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA have developed a novel type of nanomachine that can capture and store anticancer drugs inside tiny pores and release them into cancer cells in response to light.

Targeting and killing the non-malignant cells that surround and support a cancer can stop tumor growth in mice, reports a research team based at the University of Chicago Medical Center in the March 1, 2008, issue of the journal Cancer Research. The discovery offers a new approach to treating cancers that are resistant to standard therapy.

As many as half of patients with superficial bladder cancer do not respond to the standard first-line chemotherapy placed into the bladder, according to current multi-center outcomes data. When this happens, typically, their only option is surgical removal of the bladder.