New drug to beat brain and breast cancers

IANS | Jul 16, 2015, 04.49 PM IST

Comments

More

A

A

READ MORE toxic|new drug|Cancer Patients|breast cancer|brain cancer

RELATED

• Pacemakers: Things you should know
• Pain management: Causes of posterior neck pain
• 10 common habits that puts your heart in trouble
• What your mouth says about your health
• Top 10 condom mistakes to avoid

Researchers have discovered two chemical compounds that effectively stop the growth of brain cancer cells and breast tumours, opening the way for potential new drugs to be developed.

"It is particularly encouraging for brain tumour patients, who do not currently have effective treatment options besides surgery," said James Turkson from University of Hawaii Cancer Centre in the US.

"The targeted treatments are less toxic and therefore will give cancer patients a better quality of life when both compounds are developed as drugs," Turkson said.

In the study published in the journal Cancer Research, the researchers examined compounds that inhibit Stat3, a protein implicated in a variety of cancers that include brain and breast cancers.

In mouse models of brain and breast cancer, the two compounds effectively inhibited tumour growth, the results said.

The two chemical compounds, a hydroxamic acid-based inhibitor (SH5-07), and a benzoic acid-based inhibitor (SH4-54) designed at the UH Cancer Center stopped the growth of brain and breast cancer cells by blocking a certain function of the Stat3 protein.

The two compounds stop the protein from promoting cancer cells to grow, thus stopping the tumours from growing.

"Our results offer preclinical proof of concept for SH5-07 and SH4-54 as candidates for further development as cancer therapeutics," the study said.

Hole in head makes you smarter 

Big News Network (IANS)Thursday 16th July, 2015

Intelligence in humans can be estimated by the size of the holes in the skull through which the arteries pass, says a study.

"It is possible to estimate brain metabolic rate from the size of the arteries that supply the brain with blood," said lead author Roger Seymour in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide.
Published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, researchers showed that the connection between intelligence and hole size stems from brain activity being related to brain metabolic rate.
Professor Seymour measured the 'carotid foramina' (which allow passage of the internal carotid arteries servicing the brain) in primates and marsupials and found large differences.
"During the course of primate evolution, body size increased from small, tree-dwelling animals, through larger monkeys and finally the largest apes and humans," Seymour said.
A human brain contains nearly 100 billion nerve cells with connections measured in the trillions.
Each cell and connection uses a minute amount of energy but, added together, the whole brain uses about 20 percent of a person's resting metabolic rate.
If an artery passes through a bone, then simply measuring the size of the hole can indicate the blood flow rate and in turn the metabolic rate of the organ inside.
"Our analysis showed that on one hand, brain size increased with body size similarly in the two groups. On the other hand, blood flow rate in relation to brain size was very different. The relative blood flow rate increased much faster in primates than in marsupials," Seymour said.
The blood flow rate and presumably brain metabolic rate increased with brain volume much faster than expected for mammals in general.
By the time of the great apes, blood flow was about 280 percent higher than expected.
"The difference between primates and other mammals lies not in the size of the brain, but in its relative metabolic rate. High metabolic rate correlates with the evolution of greater cognitive ability and complex social behaviour among primates," Seymour said.

planning to visit Venus and an asteroid

After Mars and Moon, ISRO planning to visit Venus and an asteroid

• Science

by Kanishk Singh - Jul 16, 2015

After reaching on Moon and Mars, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is not sitting back idle, in fact the Indian space agency is now planning to reach and explore Venus, also asteroid nearby.
Venus is the second planet in our solar system. Since, Venus is one of the hottest planet in our solar system it appears like an orange fire ball if watched through a telescope in the night sky. Some scientists call Venus as the twin of our Earth due to spectacular similarities. If we go by mythology, Venus is the planet of love, wealth and prosperity and it was named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
Venus is not habitable since its atmosphere mostly consists of carbon dioxide and temperature at the planet hover around 460 degree Celcius. Venus is located nearly 261 kilometres far from the Earth and takes 224 days to complete one revolution around the Sun.
Kiran Kumar, Chairman of ISRO said that they are looking forward to next planetary mission and it could be a repeat mission on Mars, a mission on Venus or an asteroid mission. He further added that after the success of Mangalyaan, ISRO planning to revisit the red planet with Mangalyaan-2 mission.
“Overall capability we have demonstrated that we can go up to Mars with a minimal launcher and the next thing will be to look at the science portion and it can be more science driven,” Mr Kumar said.
Mr Kiran also said that the Indian space agency is making a 10-year road map for future missions and planetary explorations including asteroids. A mission to revisit Moon is on the track, Chandrayaan-2.
Moreover, Russia, the United States and the European Space Agency have had missions to Venus till date. ISRO will become fourth agency to achieve the feat.