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A pair of drugs can dramatically shrink and eliminate some breast cancers in just 11 days

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A pair of drugs can dramatically shrink and eliminate some breast cancers in just 11 days, UK doctors have shown.

They said the “surprise” findings, reported at the European Breast Cancer Conference, could mean some women no longer need chemotherapy.

The drugs, tested on 257 women, target a specific weakness found in one-in-ten breast cancers.

Experts said the findings were a “stepping stone” to tailored cancer care.

The doctors leading the trial had not expected or even intended to achieve such striking results.

They were investigating how drugs changed cancers in the short window between a tumour being diagnosed and the operation to remove it.

But by the time surgeons came to operate, there was no sign of cancer in some patients.

Prof Judith Bliss, from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said the impact was “dramatic”.

She told the BBC News website: “We were particularly surprised by these findings as this was a short-term trial.

“It became apparent some had a complete response. It’s absolutely intriguing, it is so fast.”

 

Link to article

Highly Effective Seasickness Treatment On The Horizon, Imperial College London Study

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Highly Effective Seasickness Treatment On The Horizon

The misery of motion sickness could be ended within five to ten years thanks to a new treatment being developed by scientists.

The cause of motion sickness is still a mystery but a popular theory among scientists says it is to do with confusing messages received by our brains from both our ears and eyes, when we are moving.

It is a very common complaint and has the potential to affect all of us, meaning we get a bit queasy on boats or rollercoasters. However, around three in ten people experience hard-to-bear motion sickness symptoms, such as dizziness, severe nausea, cold sweats, and more.

Research from Imperial College London, published today (4 September) in the journal Neurology, shows that a mild electrical current applied to the scalp can dampen responses in an area of the brain that is responsible for processing motion signals. Doing this helps the brain reduce the impact of the confusing inputs it is receiving and so prevents the problem that causes the symptoms of motion sickness.

 

Link to article on BioSpace

Science Weekly podcast: the synthetic biology revolution

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With this month’s news of a breakthrough in synthetic biology –extending the genetic code – we repeat a special edition of Science Weekly from July 2013, our report from the sixth international meeting on the subject at Imperial College London. Alok Jha met leading researchers to discuss the extraordinary promise and potential problems of this new field of biology.

Alok spoke to Prof Paul Freemont and Professor Richard Kitney, co-directors of the EPSRC Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation at Imperial, as they explained why synthetic biology has become so important for industry in such a short time.

 

The Guardian

Human skin grown in lab ‘can replace animal testing’

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Skin grown in the laboratory can replace animals in drug and cosmetics testing, UK scientists say.

A team led by King’s College London has grown a layer of human skin from stem cells – the master cells of the body.

Stem cells have been turned into skin before, but the researchers say this is more like real skin as it has a permeable barrier.

It offers a cost-effective alternative to testing drugs and cosmetics on animals, they say.

The outermost layer of human skin, known as the epidermis, provides a protective barrier that stops moisture escaping and microbes entering.

 

BBC