Regular readers of this blog will have noticed a flurry of posts over the past month covering the 2009 NCRI Cancer Conference, which took place at the beginning of October. Such events are a fantastic opportunity to hear about the latest research and exciting new strategies to beat cancer.
In this short video, the conference’s scientific chair Professor Ron Laskey sums up his view of the event:
We’ve also put together a review of the key themes, ideas and advances that we found exciting. Doubtless we’ll be hearing a lot more about many of these over the coming years.
There are so many different types of cancer drugs coming into the clinic that it can sometimes be hard to keep up. Among the most exciting additions in the last decade are monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) – Herceptin and rituximab are two examples.
Cancer Research UK’s Professor Martin Glennie from the University of Southampton is an expert on antibody therapies. He gave a fascinating talk at the NCRI Cancer Conference on his latest research. In this short video, Professor Glennie and Dr Juliet Gray talk about their work on a new antibody treatment for neuroblastoma – a form of childhood cancer.
A CT scan of cancer that has spread to the liver. Once cancer spreads, it is more difficult to treat
Cancer cells can invade their surrounding tissues and spread – or metastasise – to other parts of the body. Once this happens, cancer is much more difficult to successfully treat. In fact, it is estimated that around 9 out of 10 cancer deaths are due to cancer that has spread.
Recently, the advent of new, cutting-edge technologies has allowed scientists to make movies of tiny cancer cells in living tissues. This has flung open the door to studying metastasis by enabling scientists to ‘watch’ how tumours grow and spread. And it generated considerable excitement amongst delegates at the NCRI Cancer Conference this year.
The 2009 conference ended on a high note with an inspirational talk from Professor Gerard Evan, who has recently been appointed Sir William Dunn Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, where he’ll continue his cutting-edge work on studying cancer cells to find targets for new treatments.
In his talk, Professor Evan took the audience back to basics, pointing out that cancer cells “share certain common elements”. As he pointed out, despite the well-documented differences between people’s cancers, there are also similarities.
“If you could target those, you can target all cancers”, he added – leading neatly to the question “if you could target anything in a cancer cell, where would be the best place to target?”
Cancer cells produce energy in a different way - could this be their Achilles' heel?
Scientists have been researching cell metabolism – how our cells produce and use energy – for decades. And this is a particularly pertinent topic in cancer, as cancer cells seem to use energy differently from normal cells.
In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the area. And at this year’s NCRI Cancer Conference, the crowded lecture hall illustrated this recent surge in excitement.
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