A new scientific study, published in Nature Health, reveals a strong link between exposure to agricultural pesticides in the environment and the risk of developing cancer. By combining environmental data, a nationwide cancer registry, and biological analyses, researchers from the IRD, the Institut Pasteur, the University of Toulouse, and the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases (INEN) in Peru have shed new light on the role of pesticide exposure in the development of certain cancers.

How can cancer cells be targeted without damaging healthy tissue? This is one of the major challenges facing oncology today. Using  synthetic DNA strands, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has created a “smart” system that can recognise cancer cells with exceptional precision and release powerful drugs only where they are needed. Beyond cancer treatment, this research paves the way to “smart” medicines and programmable drug delivery. The full article can be discovered  in the latest issue of Nature Biotechnology.

Damaging variants in genes involved in a rapid immune response (innate immunity) are significantly linked to earlier breast cancer onset in carriers of the harmful BRCA1 genetic mutation, reveal preliminary findings published online in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

Emerging evidence supports a relationship between chronic kidney disease and oral diseases, according to a recent review from University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researchers published in BMC Nephrology.

Multiple myeloma is a cancer in which plasma cells, which normally produce antibodies, multiply uncontrollably in the bone marrow. There is currently no cure. However, various therapies can stabilise the disease and alleviate symptoms. One such therapy is to treat the patient with their own stem cells. This often involves weeks in hospital. Using machine learning methods, a research team has now assessed the conditions in which some of the therapy can be safely carried out as an outpatient. The study was conducted by researchers from the Göttingen Campus Institute for Dynamics of Biological Networks (CIDBN) at the University of Göttingen, the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), and the University Medical Center Bielefeld (OWL). It was published in the journal npj digital medicine.

 

For patients undergoing breast reconstruction, residing in a food desert may be associated with an increased risk of certain complications after surgery, reports a study in the April issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

A research team from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have discovered how the immune system’s CD8+ T cells use the nutrient cysteine to control two essential functions that compete for this resource — the immune cell’s ability to multiply and its ability to kill cancer cells.