In most clinical trials for cancer therapy, investigators test treatments in patients with advanced disease. But a recent cardiovascular secondary prevention study has given researchers a unique opportunity: to explore the effectiveness of giving a drug to patients before cancer emerges. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting, Paul M. Ridker, MD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at BWH, and colleagues presented findings from CANTOS (Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study).

It's been well established that obesity is a contributor to cancer risk, but how it actually causes cancer is still a question that hasn't been fully explained. A new Michigan State University study now offers new details showing that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one. The federally funded research also found that a lower layer of abdominal fat, when compared to fat just under the skin, is the more likely culprit, releasing even more of this protein and encouraging tumor growth.

A new medical-diagnostic device made out of paper detects biomarkers and identifies diseases by performing electrochemical analyses - powered only by the user's touch - and reads out the color-coded test results, making it easy for non-experts to understand. The self-powered, paper-based electrochemical devices, or SPEDs, are designed for sensitive diagnostics at the "point-of-care," or when care is delivered to patients, in regions where the public has limited access to resources or sophisticated medical equipment.

As prescription drug spending continues to rise in the United States, along with prices for new and well-established drugs, insurers, employers and patients are searching for ways to cut costs. A new study led by UC Berkeley researchers found that a policy called reference pricing is effective at encouraging patients to spend significantly less on prescription drugs by choosing cheaper drugs over name brand options.

Every cell in the body, whether skin or muscle or brain, starts out as a generic cell that acquires its unique characteristics after undergoing a process of specialization. Nowhere is this process more dramatic than it is in red blood cells. In order to make as much room as possible for the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin, pretty much everything else inside these precursor red blood cells - nucleus, mitochondria, ribosomes and more - gets purged.

Every gene in (almost) every cell of the body is present in two variants - so called alleles: one is deriving from the mother, the other one from the father. In most cases both alleles are active and transcribed by the cells into an RNA message. However, for a few genes, only one allele is expressed, while the other one is silenced.

When an investigational prescription drug shows promise for treating a serious illness or filling an unmet medical need, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has special programs available to expedite its clinical testing and approval. One is the "Accelerated Approval" pathway, in which the FDA will accept weaker-than-usual evidence of the drug's efficacy from its pre-clinical trials.