Math, biology and nanotechnology are becoming strange, yet effective bed-fellows in the fight against cancer treatment resistance. Researchers at the University of Waterloo and Harvard Medical School have engineered a revolutionary new approach to cancer treatment that pits a lethal combination of drugs together into a single nanoparticle.

Love it or hate it, broccoli is touted as a superfood, offering an array of health benefits. And it’s about to get even more super. University of Illinois researchers have identified candidate genes controlling the accumulation of phenolic compounds in broccoli. Consumption of phenolic compounds, including certain flavonoids, is associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, asthma, and several types of cancer.

Pharmaceutical companies and other sponsors of clinical drug trials are required to report results to ClinicalTrials.gov, a registry run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It's the largest clinical trials database, currently holding registrations from about 200,000 trials.

The natural molecule, n-acetylcysteine (NAC), with strong antioxidant effects, shows potential benefit as part of the management for patients with Parkinson's disease, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. Combining clinical evaluations of a patient's mental and physical abilities with brain imaging studies that tracked the levels of dopamine,

About 80 percent of patients with moderate to severe psoriasis saw their disease completely or almost completely cleared with a new drug called ixekizumab, according to three large, long-term clinical trials led by Northwestern Medicine investigator Kenneth Gordon, MD, professor of Dermatology.

Examining databases of proteins' 3-D shapes, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified more than 850 DNA mutations that appear to be linked to cancer. The information may expand the number of cancer patients who can benefit from existing drugs.

In a meta-analysis of hundreds of clinical trials involving thousands of patients, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that therapeutic approaches using precision medicine, which emphasizes the use of individual genetics to refine cancer treatment, showed improved response and longer periods of disease remission, even in phase I trials.