Cancer cells consume exorbitant amounts of glucose, a key source of energy, and shutting down this glucose consumption has long been considered a logical therapeutic strategy. However, good pharmacological targets to stop cancers' ability to uptake and metabolize glucose are missing. In a new study published in Cell Reports, a team of University of Colorado Cancer Center researchers,

When cannabinoids activate signaling pathways in cancer cells they can stimulate a cell death mechanism called apoptosis, unleashing a potent anti-tumor effect. Yet cannabinoids, which have also shown strong activity against human tumor tissue grown in animal models, have undergone minimal testing in patients. Their potential use as antitumor drugs and/or to boost the effectiveness of conventional cancer therapies is examined in an article published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM), a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Cancer cells can be targeted and destroyed with the metal from the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, according to new research by an international collaboration between the University of Warwick and Sun Yat-Sen University in China. Researchers from the Professor Sadler and Professor O’Connor groups in Warwick's Department of Chemistry and Professor Hui Chao's group at Sun Yat-Sen have demonstrated that iridium - the world's second densest metal - can be used to kill cancer cells by filling them with deadly version of oxygen, without harming healthy tissue.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created a new lab-grown blood vessel replacement that is composed completely of biological materials, but surprisingly doesn't contain any living cells at implantation. The vessel, that could be used as an "off the shelf" graft for kidney dialysis patients, performed well in a recent study with nonhuman primates.

Alzheimer's disease, the leading cause of dementia, has long been assumed to originate in the brain. But research from the University of British Columbia and Chinese scientists indicates that it could be triggered by breakdowns elsewhere in the body. The findings, published today in Molecular Psychiatry, offer hope that future drug therapies might be able to stop or slow the disease without acting directly on the brain, which is a complex, sensitive and often hard-to-reach target.

Precision Medicine in oncology, where genetic testing is used to determine the best drugs to treat cancer patients, is not always so precise when applied to some of the world's more diverse populations, according to a study led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, and the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC).

More than one-third of adults in China have high blood pressure - often dubbed the "silent killer" for its lack of symptoms - but only about one in 20 have the condition under control. These findings are published Oct. 25 in the Lancet's special issue on China by researchers at Yale and the Chinese National Center for Cardiovascular Disease.