Using breast cancer cells, researchers have demonstrated that cancer phenotype can be reversibly altered by manipulations other than genetic means. Breast cancer cells grown in 3-D culture can be induced to form normal breast duct-like structures, as opposed to dense cell masses, by activating or inhibiting specific signaling pathways, including antibody binding to the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin.

Breast cancer cells that express estrogen receptor (ER) can be treated with tamoxifen only as long as they remain sensitive to the drug. Resistance to tamoxifen is a common problem in breast cancer treatment, but researchers are identifying the factors that influence sensitivity versus resistance.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a renewal of international social- and economic-development aid for areas lying in the shadow of the nuclear disaster at Chornobyl.

A Johns Hopkins team has stopped in its tracks a form of blood cancer in mice by engineering and inactivating an enzyme, telomerase, thereby shortening the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres.

An anti-reflux valve developed to help esophageal cancer patients also has been shown to help those with bile duct obstruction, according to Kulwinder S. Dua, M.D., a research physician at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. The study, using the anti-reflux biliary stent in patients with cancer of the pancreas or bile duct, appears in the May issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy journal.

A new hereditary breast cancer gene has been discovered by scientists at the Lundberg Laboratory for Cancer Research and the Plastic Surgery Clinic at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden. The researchers found that women with a certain hereditary deformity syndrome run a nearly twenty times higher risk of contracting breast cancer than expected.

A rigorous, long-term study of quality of life in patients who underwent one of the three most common treatments for prostate cancer found that each affected men's lives in different ways. The findings provide invaluable information for men with prostate cancer who are facing vital treatment decisions.

Researchers at the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center have developed methods for treating lung cancer cells that have become resistant to new anti-cancer agents.

A naturally occurring compound found in many fruits and vegetables as well as red wine, selectively kills leukemia cells in culture while showing no discernible toxicity against healthy cells, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Scientists have discovered one of the reasons why bladder cancer is so much more prevalent in men than women: A molecular receptor or protein that is much more active in men than women plays a role in the development of the disease. The finding could open the door to new types of treatment with the disease.

Researchers from the Children's Cancer Hospital at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have found that a novel targeted therapy effectively treats acute leukemia in animal models by preventing cancer cells from being purged of damaged proteins.

Two genes associated with aggressive breast cancer are linked to a key property of mammary stem cell function, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. The genes, PTEN and HER2, both are involved in the biochemical pathways that mediate stem cell self-renewal, a defining property of stem cells.