A drug used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia appears to be more effective at stopping a type of medulloblastoma in mouse models than existing treatments for the deadly pediatric brain tumor, reports a multi-institutional team led by researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego.

Onions and garlic are key ingredients in sofrito, a condiment that's a staple of Puerto Rican cuisine. They may also be a recipe for reducing the risk of breast cancer. That's according to the findings of a study led by University at Buffalo and University of Puerto Rico researchers. It's the first population-based study to examine the association between onion and garlic consumption and breast cancer in Puerto Rico.

Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School (DukeNUS), in collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)'s Bioinformatics Institute (BII), and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), USA, have discovered that the dengue virus changes its shape through mutations in Envelope (E) protein to evade vaccines and therapeutics.

Researchers have identified a potential new drug target in the fight against cancer. In a study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers describe how a cancer-linked version of the protein mitoNEET can close the primary gateways in the outer surface of mitochondria, the "power plants" that supply cells with chemical energy.

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a method to address failures in a promising anti-cancer drug, bringing together tools from genome engineering, protein engineering and biomaterials science to improve the efficacy, accuracy and longevity of certain cancer therapies.

A potential treatment for polycystic kidney disease - a genetic disorder that causes the kidneys to swell with multiple cysts and can eventually lead to organ failure - has shown promising results in animal testing. A study describing the drug's development and testing appears today in Nature Communications. The study shows an approximately 50 percent reduction in kidney size in afflicted mice following treatment.

A research team from the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center has found that a compound molecule used for drug delivery of insulin could be used to treat glioblastoma, an aggressive, usually fatal form of brain cancer. Glioblastoma, also known as GBM, is a fast-growing, web-like tumor that arises from supportive tissue around the brain and resists surgical treatment.