Mayo Clinic today reported promising interim results from a Phase II trial of a new combination therapy for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer that is resistant to platinum therapy. Thirty-three percent of study participants achieved either complete or partial tumor regression from the therapy, which combines flavopiridol and cisplatin.

Studies presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics demonstrate the flexibility of targeted therapy techniques, where new drugs can be developed and tested in human trials more quickly and safely than ever before.

Scientists have identified the transcription factor DMP1 as a pivotal tumor suppressor for both human and mouse lung cancers, especially in carcinomas that exhibit intact Arf-p53 pathways. The research, published by Cell Press in the October 2007 issue of Cancer Cell, may lead to development of new drug therapies for lung cancer.

The use of androgen deprivation therapy to treat localized prostate cancer is associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease, according to a study published online October 9 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Italian scientists will announce today (Monday September 24) that they have found a new and promising target for anti-tumour therapy in cancer. Professor Saverio Alberti, from the CESI, University of Chieti Foundation, Chieti, will tell the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) that he and his team have found a widespread mechanism for the stimulation of tumour growth in man, and that this is leading to the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

A nanoparticle drug delivery system designed for brain tumor therapy has shown promising tumor cell selectivity in a novel cell culture model devised by University of Nottingham scientists.

If a new approach to cancer therapy, still experimental and in a phase I clinical trial, turns out as well as hoped, the credit will go as much to technology transfer as to scientific acumen.

A promising new line in anti-cancer therapy by blocking the molecular motors involved in copying genetic information during cell division is being pursued by young Dutch researcher Dr. Nynke Dekker in one of this year’s EURYI award winning projects sponsored by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European Heads of Research Councils (EuroHORCS).

An international team of researchers is proposing a plan for building a “toolkit” for personalized medicine — that long-anticipated era in which physicians customize efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases to match the unique genetic characteristics of each individual patient.

The Cancer Therapy & Research Center Institute for Drug Development, in collaboration with Oncolytics Biotech Inc., a biotechnology company, has enrolled the first two patients in a new Phase II clinical study for patients with various types of sarcomas that have metastasized to the lung.

Dr Richard Lock, Head of the Leukaemia Biology Program at the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research, Sydney, along with collaborators from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and University of Southern California, USA, recently published their findings in the prestigious scientific journal Blood.

An enzyme that cancer cells eliminate, apparently so they can keep proliferating, may hold clues to more targeted, effective cancer treatment, scientists say.