Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have been searching locally for plants that have potential for use to combat cancer. Now, three plants used for traditional medicine in Saudi Arabia are shown to be worthy of further investigation for anticancer properties. Cancer is a leading cause of illness and death worldwide. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 8.8 million cancer-related deaths, but almost twice as many cases are diagnosed each year.

Most cancer-related deaths are the result of post-surgical metastatic recurrence. In metastasis, cells of primary tumors travel to other parts of the body, where they often proliferate into inoperable, ultimately fatal growths. A new Tel Aviv University study finds that a specific drug regimen administered prior to and after surgery significantly reduces the risk of post-surgical cancer recurrence.

A drug commonly used to treat diabetes may have disease-modifying potential to treat Parkinson's disease, a new UCL-led study suggests, paving the way for further research to define its efficacy and safety. The study, published in The Lancet and funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF), found that people with Parkinson's who injected themselves each week with exenatide for one year performed better in movement (motor) tests than those who injected a placebo.

There is a group of metastatic breast cancers that has the HER2 gene amplified - the cells have many copies of it - which leads to enhanced activity of the product enzyme, a tyrosine kinase. HER2 has been established as a therapeutic target in breast cancer, and breast cancers in which the HER2 gene is not amplified do not, in general, respond to HER2-directed therapeutic approaches.

Researchers at Binghamton University have developed a new drug that may limit the progression of Parkinson's disease while providing better symptom relief to potentially hundreds of thousands of people with the disease. Symptoms of Parkinson's disease are commonly managed using a selective dopamine receptor agonists. While these drugs are useful in early-stage Parkinson's, they tend to lose efficacy in later disease stages.

A study published online in The FASEB Journal, involving mice, suggests that EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), the most abundant catechin and biologically active component in green tea, could alleviate high-fat and high-fructose (HFFD)-induced insulin resistance and cognitive impairment.

A new cooperative research study including Norris Cotton Cancer Center's Lionel Lewis, MB BCh, MD, finds that nivolumab plus ipilimumab therapy demonstrated manageable safety, notable antitumor activity, and durable responses with promising long term overall survival in patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (mRCC).