university of california san diego

(University of California - San Diego) Dense networks of blood vessels thought to spur cancer's growth could actually hinder rather than promote tumor progression.

The findings partly explain why drugs designed to treat cancer by strangling its blood supply have been disappointing when used alone and why those treatments are more effective when combined with traditional chemotherapy.

Despite their rapid progression, tumors fed by more normal vascular were also more vulnerable to the effects of standard chemotherapy drugs.

(University of California - San Diego) Researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego are conducting clinical trials of a novel therapy aimed at revving up the immune system to combat a particularly difficult to treat form of leukemia.

(University of California - San Diego) Oncologists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla are hoping to stave off the relentless march of advanced lung cancer by treating patients with a novel kind of cancer vaccine.

While many vaccines attempt to pump up the immune system to fight off a cancer, the new vaccine, Lucanix, is genetically engineered to also trick the cancer into turning off its immune system-suppressing activities.

(University of California - San Diego) A study of the first approximately 100 patients who have received partial breast irradiation with a small, whisk-like, expandable device inserted inside the breast has shown that after one year, the device is effective at sparing nearby healthy tissue from the effects of radiation.

The device, called SAVI, is aimed at providing customized radiation therapy while minimizing exposure to healthy tissue around the breast after a woman has received a lumpectomy for early stage cancer.

(University of California - San Diego) Scientists have developed nanometer-sized "cargo ships" that can sail throughout the body via the bloodstream without immediate detection from the body's immune radar system, and ferry their cargo of anti-cancer drugs and markers into tumors that might otherwise go untreated or undetected.

(University of California - San Diego) Researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla have found evidence explaining why a common chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, may not always work for every cancer patient.

They have shown that when a variant version of a key protein that normally causes cell death is active, patients may be resistant to the cancer-killing drug.

(University of California - San Diego) The world's top engineers, physicians and scientists are joining forces to conceptualize, develop and bring to reality the future tools and treatments of 21st century health care through UC San Diego's new Institute of Engineering in Medicine.

Nanoparticle bombs to kill cancer, molecular-sized bridges to repair damaged hearts, and scarless surgery techniques are now on the frontier of medical innovations in California with the new institute leading the way.

(University of California - San Diego) As the specter of a worldwide outbreak of avian or "bird flu" lingers, health officials recognize that new drugs are desperately needed since some strains of the virus already have developed resistance to the current roster of anti-flu remedies.

The Research Ethics Program at the University of California - San Diego has created a website - Resources for Research Ethics Education - for teachers of research ethics.

The website has four sections - Introduction, Topics, Educational Formats, and Discussion Tools. The website is supported by members of the Responsible Conduct of Research Education Committee (RCREC) and the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE).

While investigating the tropical disease leptospirosis in the Peruvian Amazon, an infectious disease specialist from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has uncovered new, emerging bacteria that may be responsible for up to 40 percent of cases of the disease.