Friday, March 21, 2014

Vulnerability of Glioblastoma Cells to Catastrophic Vacuolization and Death Induced by a Small Molecule

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have introduced what could possibly be a revolution in article in Cell, researchers found that molecules known as vacquinols "reliably and selectively compromised" neoplastic cell viability. Vacquinols stimulates cell death by membrane ruffling, vacuolization, and -- ultimately -- cytoplasmic membrane rupture. Although in vivo testing has been restricted to mice thus far, this paper may prove to be the beginning of a new avenue of research into the selective killing glioblastoma cells in patients.
glioblasoma treatment. In a recent

Friday, March 7, 2014

Best Post of November 2013: Nanotechnology joins with cancer genomics in silencing glioblastoma oncogene

The next in our "Best of the Month" series is from November 1, 1013:


Gold nanoparticles (yellow) with small interfering RNAs (green) knock down an oncogene in glioblastoma.
In a study of mice released this week in Science Nanomedicine, researchers were able to reduce glioblastoma size three- to four-fold by switching off the oncogene Bcl2Like12 by means of nanotechnology-assisted delivery of small interfering RNAs. Normal (linear) nucleic acids cannot get into cells, but these spherical nucleic acids can. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) surrounds a gold nanoparticle like a shell; the nucleic acids are highly oriented, densely packed and form a tiny sphere. (The gold nanoparticle core is only 13 nanometers in diameter.) The RNA’s sequence is programmed to silence the disease-causing gene.

“This is a beautiful marriage of a new technology with the genes of a terrible disease,” said Chad A. Mirkin, a nanomedicine expert and a senior co-author of the study. “Using highly adaptable spherical nucleic acids, we specifically targeted a gene associated with GBM and turned it off in vivo. This proof-of-concept further establishes a broad platform for treating a wide range of diseases, from lung and colon cancers to rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.”

Dr. Alexander H. Stegh discovered the Bcl2Like12 oncogene in 2007.  "The beauty of the gene we silenced in this study is that it plays many different roles in therapy resistance,." says Stegh. "Taking the gene out of the picture should allow conventional therapies to be more effective.”

Again, thanks to loyal reader and friend, Dr. Doug Shevlin (pictured above on far left with alt country singer Eef Barzelay on far right), for alerting me to this new development in the field of nanotechnogenomics.

Dr. Diamandis develops network to help pathologists interface with AI computational scientists

A neuropathology colleague in Toronto (Dr. Phedias Diamandis) is developing some amazing AI-based tools for pathology and academia. He hel...