Deborah Vassar, Ernest Mueller, Savita Bagga. 2009

Epigenetics is often defined as the study of heritable changes that occur without a change in the actual DNA sequences. It has been shown that associated DNA proteins, called histones, are altered by methylation, phosphorylation, acetylation, and other changes. DNA chromatin structure is altered by these histone modifications as well as by direct methylation. These changes are in constant flux and can alter gene expression and related phenotypes; the actual DNA sequence, however, remains unchanged.
DNA methylation, the addition of a methyl group to the 5´ carbon of cytosine, is one of the main components of the epigenetic code and is thought to be involved in the repression of gene activity. It’s relationship to development and cancer has been extensively studied. Read more »

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells are characterized by strong drug resistance and high metastatic incidence. In this study, the effects of ten kinds of Chinese herbs on RCC cell migration and proliferation were examined. Aqueous extract of Paeonia suffruticosa (PS-A) exerted strong inhibitory effects on cancer cell migration, mobility, and invasion. The results of mouse xenograft experiments showed that the treatment of PS-A significantly suppressed tumor growth and pulmonary metastasis. Read more »

For many decades, it has been appreciated that tumor progression is not monotonic, and development of a cancer cell does not equate to inevitable cancer presentation in the clinic. Tumor progression is challenged by numerous intrinsic and extrinsic bottlenecks that can hold the tumor in dormant stages for prolonged periods. Given the complex, multiscale nature of these bottlenecks, the Center of Cancer Systems Biology organized a workshop on critical issues of systems biology of tumor dormancy. Read more »

Iain Beehuat Tan and Patrick Tan. Innovation Journal 2012

Cancer of the stomach (gastric cancer) is the 4th most common cancer in the world and the 2nd leading cause of global cancer mortality, accounting for 8% of all newly-diagnosed cancer cases and 10% of cancer deaths worldwide. Particularly prevalent in several Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, China, and Singapore, most gastric cancer patients are diagnosed at advanced disease stages when surgery is no longer possible. In advanced cancer, several chemotherapy drugs have been demonstrated in clinical trials to provide tangible survival benefits, albeit modest. Clinicians have observed that patients with gastric cancer have different degree of disease aggressiveness and even when treated alike with the same treatment, have varying degrees of response with dramatic response and benefit with certain treatments and complete futility with other treatments. Read more »

Paula J. Nenn, MD; Eugene Vaisberg., ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES, jul/aug 2010, VOL. 16, NO. 4

The need for a new health paradigm is irrefutable and well documented. The ever increasing number of complex chronic diseases that cannot be managed by the “pill for an ill” model of traditional health care has necessitated a medical paradigm that deals with the underlying causes of complex chronic diseases instead of the symptoms they manifest. A systems biology approach to medicine adopts the abundant scientific evidence that the human body operates through a web of interconnected systems, not as individual organs or organ systems working alone and independent of one another. Consider life as a tree, where the branches represent different organs and their corresponding specialties of medicine (eg, cardiology, pulmonology, psychiatry). Read more »

A Round Table Meeting of the European Parliament Interest Groups MEPs Against Cancer and MEPs for CAM on the above topic took place on Tuesday 27th March 2012 in the European Parliament.
A European survey has shown that more than a third of cancer patients in Europe use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), to increase their body’s ability to overcome the disease, to enhance their health and well‐being, to feel empowered, and to alleviate physical and/or psychological distress. Read more »

Fanelli D (2009) PLoS ONE 4(5): e5738. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

The frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct is a matter of controversy. Many surveys have asked scientists directly whether they have committed or know of a colleague who committed research misconduct, but their results appeared difficult to compare and synthesize. This is the first meta-analysis of these surveys.
To standardize outcomes, the number of respondents who recalled at least one incident of misconduct was calculated for each question, and the analysis was limited to behaviours that distort scientific knowledge: fabrication, falsification, “cooking” of data, etc… Survey questions on plagiarism and other forms of professional misconduct were excluded. The final sample consisted of 21 surveys that were included in the systematic review, and 18 in the meta-analysis. Read more »

Li XK, Motwani M, Tong W, Bornmann W, Schwartz GK. Mol Pharmacol. 2000 Dec;58(6):1287-93.

Huanglian is an herb that is widely used in China for the treatment of gastroenteritis. We elected to determine whether huanglian could inhibit tumor cell growth by modulating molecular events directly associated with the cell cycle. Huanglian inhibited tumor growth and colony formation of gastric, colon, and breast cancer cell lines in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Cell growth was completely inhibited after 3 days of continuous drug exposure to 10 μg/ml of herb. Read more »