Onco Actu du 20 mai 2015

	1. Biologie
Mechanism Uncovered for Mutations Common to Cancer Cells [GEN] Based on these new findings, the researchers are now conducting a variety of experiments designed to test whether inhibiting the transcription factor activity would not only turn down TERT expression, but might also result in selective cancer cell death.
Annals of Oncology Press Release: World First – Researchers Quantify the Proportion of Different Genetic Mutations Contained within Individual Bowel Cancers [ESMO] “By using this scoring system, we found that different genes involved in bowel cancer behave in a different manner; for example, when a tumour has a mutation in the KRAS or NRAS genes, usually all the cells are mutant, whereas for other genes such as BRAF and PIK3CA only a fraction of tumour cells is mutant. In addition, we identified tumours that are clearly formed by multiple groups of cells with different molecular alterations.”
	3.1 Tabac
Is nicotine all bad? [Reuters] Psychologists and tobacco-addiction specialists, including some in world-leading laboratories in Britain, think it's now time to distinguish clearly between nicotine and smoking. The evidence shows smoking is the killer, not nicotine, they say.
	4. Dépistage, diagnostic et pronostic
Doctor group seeks to clear confusion in cancer screening [Fox News] Screening for cancer has gotten more complicated in recent years with evolving guidelines that sometimes conflict. Now a doctors' group aims to ease some confusion — and encourage more discussion of testing's pros and cons — with what it calls advice on "high-value screening" for five types of tumors.
	4.12 Biopsies liquides
Are We Ready to Trust Liquid Biopsies? with Milena Cankovic, Henry Ford Hospital [Mendelspod] Milena says her lab is currently doing studies of liquid biopsies alongside their traditional solid tumor work. She says the lab plans to offer their first blood-based cancer tests later this year. What tests might those be, and what is involved in ensuring they are ready for prime time?
Microchip captures clusters of circulating tumor cells - NIH study [NIH] The new technology — called Cluster-Chip — was developed with support from a Quantum Grant from NIBIB, which funds transformative technological innovation designed to solve major medical problems with a substantial disease burden, such as preventing cancer metastasis or precisely tailoring therapeutics to an individual’s cancer cell biology.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
Dense Breasts Are Just One Part Of The Cancer Risk Calculus [NPR] About 45 percent of women have dense breasts; that's a large number of women. But the sensitivity of mammograms is such that we're not missing 45 percent of cancers. So can we narrow it down to women who are at higher risk of cancer, and especially women at higher risk of advanced cancer? Then if we did supplemental imaging of women in that group, it might help them.
Breast density should not be sole factor to govern cancer screening, study says [The Guardian] This summer Kerlikowske hopes to publish results on whether supplemental ultrasound and MRI screening does improve the chances of detecting cancer. “We have data on both of them, and we’re in the process of analyzing them,” she said.
	5. Traitements
Chemo before surgery benefits patients with advanced ovarian cancer [Cancer Research UK] 550 women with the disease took part in the trial, with 276 given the standard treatment of surgery followed by six cycles of chemotherapy, and 274 had surgery after three cycles of chemotherapy.
Hitting the Right Target? Lab Studies Suggest Epigenetic Drug May Fight Childhood Brain Cancer [NIH Director's Blog] In their study published in Nature Medicine, the researchers report that panobinostat—a drug that the Food and Drug Administration recently approved to treat multiple myeloma—also slows the growth of DIPG cell lines grown in lab dishes. What’s more, panobinostat improved survival in mice with DIPG tumors implanted in their brains.
	5.2 Pharma
Robert Gentleman on His Goals for Drug Discovery at 23andMe [Bio-IT World] Robert Gentleman’s goal is to “bring bioinformatics and computational drug discovery to complement the really strong genetics” already at 23andMe. Gentleman recently left Genentech along with his boss Richard Scheller to start 23andMe’s new therapeutics group.
	5.2.1 Pharma - Partenariats
BioNTech, Genmab Launch Up-to-$15M Cancer Immunotherapy Collaboration [GEN] In the latest alliance with Genmab, BioNTech said it will combine its immunomodulatory antibodies and onco-immunotherapy expertise with Genmab's DuoBody® technology platform, which uses a three-step process to produce, purify, and recombine a pair of human IgG1 antibodies.
	5.2.2 Pharma - Fusions & Acquisitions
Ipsen strengthens its presence in the oncology field with the acquisition of OctreoPharm Sciences, a company developing innovative radiopharmaceuticals for the diagnosis and treatment of neuroendocrine tumours [Ipsen] OctreoPharm is developing an innovative theranostic approach for the management of NET based on a somatostatin receptor antagonist peptide.
Pfizer Rumors, Again [In the Pipeline] Rumors continue to fly around that Pfizer is going to ease its merger hunger and its foreign-cash tax woes by making an offer for GlaxoSmithKline. Lord, what a mess that will be if it happens.
	5.9 AACR
Clinical Trials Highlighted at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015 [AACR] "The clinical program at this year’s Annual Meeting was arguably the strongest we’ve ever had at the AACR,” de Bono said.
	6.1 Observation
Family breast cancer 'as treatable' as other tumours [BBC News] "Patients with a family history of breast cancer can therefore be reassured that their family history alone does not mean that their outcome will be worse."
	6.11 Patients
Cancer patients get chance to create a musical legacy [Reuters] Established three years ago by music producer Jim Ebert, Cancer Can Rock allows musicians with cancer to record a song for posterity. "There's no perks in cancer, so I said, what can I do?" said Ebert, himself a brain cancer survivor who 14 years ago was told he had one year to live.
	6.3 Associations
4 Cancer Charities Are Accused of Fraud [NY Times] In its complaint, the F.T.C. called all four of the cancer groups “sham charities,” charging the organizations with deceiving donors and misusing millions of dollars in donations, including putting money toward personal expenses like carwashes and college tuition, from 2008 to 2012.
Four U.S. cancer charities charged; two settle [Reuters] The FTC, 50 states and the District of Columbia charged the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services Inc, the Children's Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society Inc with collecting millions of dollars in donations but doing little to help patients.
	6.4 Médico-éco
Dame Sally Davies: ‘We can make research a statement, not a question’ [Cancer Research UK] Professor Dame Sally Davies is England’s Chief Medical Officer. This is her reaction to our new report, published this morning, exploring how the NHS supports health research.
NHS pressures at risk of stifling cancer research [Cancer Research UK] The report, based on interviews with clinicians, nurses and administrators involved in NHS clinical cancer research**, revealed pockets of excellence in clinical research, but also showed how escalating pressures to deliver routine NHS services are squeezing out time for hospital staff to do vital research.
	6.6 Publications
F1000 and ORCID Partner to Launch Standard for Citing Peer Review Activities [ORCID] Working with the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI), we established a community working group to define a standard field set and business rules that would work across the many types of peer review used in publishing, funding, university research management, and conference presentations.
Are current scholarly metrics leading us away from research transparency? [BioMed Central blog] Despite the plethora of metrics, and certainly as a result of the misdirected importance placed on them as an assessment of quality, transparency – probably the most important of all measurements of quality – is actually not covered by a metric.
Reproducibility crisis: Blame it on the antibodies [Nature News & Comment] Antibodies are the workhorses of biological experiments, but they are littering the field with false findings. A few evangelists are pushing for change.
	6.7.1 Bioinformatique
To handle big data, shrink it [MIT News] Algorithm reduces size of data sets while preserving their mathematical properties.
	6.7.2 Applis
Hospital Pilots Chemotherapy Apple Watch App in London [HIT] Using Medopad’s Apple Watch Chemotherapy app, patients will receive on-wrist notifications of their medications to take. Patients will also be able to track their symptoms and temperature to submit to physicians in a couple of taps.
MD Anderson Pilots Apple Watch for Breast Cancer Treatment [HIT] Integrated medical-behavioral health pilot project will develop a new Apple Watch data gathering app and also leverage Polaris’s Polestar advanced data-collection-and-analytics platform that provides meaningful, actionable results for reporting on and monitoring of a patient’s expected treatment response.