Published Date: 04 May 2008
By Kate Foster
THE lives of half of all cancer victims could be saved or prolonged as a result of clinical trials set to start within five years, Scotland's leading researcher in the field revealed last night.
Professor Sir David Lane said work on his earlier discoveries into the link between genes and cancer had reached the stage where drug trials in humans were likely to begin in "four to five years".Lane, in his first interview since returning to Scotland from a three-year post in Singapore, predicted that if the trials were successful up to 7,000 Scottish cancer sufferers annually could be saved, 10 times as many in the UK and millions across the world.
Lane, who is based at Dundee University, is revered in scientific circles for his discovery of the p53 gene and work on how it helps prevent cancer by "switching off" the damaged cells that can cause tumours.Speaking exclusively to Scotland on Sunday, he revealed that his own groundbreaking experiments, as well as research by other scientists across the world, had reached a "very exciting" stage.Many tumours begin when p53 is prevented from doing its vital anti-cancer work by other chemicals in the body.
According to Lane, a molecule has been created which allows p53 to carry on fighting the disease. The molecule, Nutlin 3, works by blocking a protein called MDM2 which itself can inhibit p53.Theoretically, a drug containing Nutlin 3 could be used to help treat virtually all types of cancer, including lung, leukaemia, breast and colon. Approximately half of all cancers involve the p53 gene being blocked by MDM2.Lane said: "There are things coming to clinical trial soon and that's very exciting. I expect in the next four or five years there will be clinical trials of drugs that work by turning on p53.
It's very clear that it's getting very close now and that's a big excitement."He added: "The thing we would start with would be trials of leukaemia because it's easier to monitor how drugs are working there by taking tumour cells from the blood and seeing if they are being damaged."Lane predicted: "Cancer will become more and more a treatable disease where the expected outcome is a successful treatment. We are getting towards that already with breast cancer. It's a combination of early detection, trials, and treatments."The difference I feel now is that it feels like we are really on the right track. You can feel the progress. There were times 20 years ago when there weren't drugs coming though and this was such a difficult disease to treat.
Now we know we are doing the right things. That's not to be complacent because with the ageing population cancer is going to be a major disease but I am really optimistic about what we are doing."Lane called on the scientific community to work together. "There are a lot of hurdles and the costs go up enormously, hundreds of millions to do full clinical approval, so it's a long staircase," he said. "In the end it's not just one person that gets it there, it's a combination of the scientists, the clinicians, the patients and the public who fund it."Lane discovered the importance of p53 – since dubbed the 'tumour suppressor gene' or the 'guardian of the genome' – in 1979. It is hoped that new treatments based on p53 will be more effective and less toxic than traditional therapies such as chemotherapy.
Although cancer deaths are falling in Scotland, the disease remains the nation's biggest killer, claiming 15,000 lives in 2006.Dr Karen Vousden, director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, said: "There are very few types of cancer that would not be helped by this. It could benefit up to 50% of all cancer cases."Potentially this could have an enormous impact. There are still hurdles to overcome.
But you can't help but be excited by this."Andrea Stiglianou, coordinator of the Leukaemia Society, said: "Anything that leads towards better treatments and enables people to lead better quality lives is really gladly welcomed. Sadly, we are still losing patients, so this is welcomed 100%."Lane has returned to Dundee after three years at Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology.He will now spend most of his time at his research base in Dundee University as well as taking a strategic role with Cancer Research UK, steering its research and investment.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
New engravings and sculptures uncovered in Raidan Temple
New engravings, sculptures and drawings have been found recently in the Raidan Temple archaeological site in Dhafar. The temple was discovered last year, and the new findings were uncovered by a German mission headed by Professor Paul Yule, an archaeology expert from Heidelberg University.
The joint mission undertaking the excavation at Dhafar consists of both German and Yemeni experts. The new findings consist of drawings on horizontal strips. On the bottom, there is a row of drawings of bulls’ heads. Above this strip there is an embroidery-like inscription of leaves and grapes, and on the top level there is a strip of animal drawings such as deer, gazelles, tigers and some mythical winged animals engraved on stones that constitute one side of the temple’s wall.
On the wall of the other side of the temple there is a block of stone 135 centimeters tall on which a full picture of a king with a crown on his head and a sword at his side, holding an engraved scepter and a bunch of plants in his hand. The findings are estimated to be dated between 100 and 300 AD, for the facial engraving is similar to those found in south-west Iran dating from this period, and the temple was built around the same time. “Though there is a word engraved in an ancient language above the king’s picture, pronounced ‘wedan’, it is not the name of the king.
It may have a religious meaning which specialists and future findings may shed light on this,” said Fuad al-Qashm, general manager of the Ibb bureau of archaeology and antiquities museums. Al-Qashm believes that the new discoveries are rare and that they have great importance, for they reveal an important period of Yemen’s history and civilization. Officials think that the findings are only a glimpse of what lies beneath the earth, as this region was the headquarters and capital of the Himyarite Kingdom established by King Thi Raidan in 115 BCE which lasted for 650 years.
The Himyarite Kingdom was the largest and most powerful ancient Yemeni state in southern Arabia between 300 and 525 BCE, because it expanded its power to the north and annexed the Saba state in Marib.
This created the first united kingdom in history 2000 years ago; called ‘Saba-Tho-Raidan’, headed by King Sharhabil Bin Ya’for Bin Abdo Karb Asa’d Asa’d al-Kamil, which controlled much of the east-west perfume and incense trade. The Ibb governorate witnessed the rise and fall of almost all Yemeni civilizations. Most state and kingdom capitals were there, with many remains surviving the wear of time.
The joint mission undertaking the excavation at Dhafar consists of both German and Yemeni experts. The new findings consist of drawings on horizontal strips. On the bottom, there is a row of drawings of bulls’ heads. Above this strip there is an embroidery-like inscription of leaves and grapes, and on the top level there is a strip of animal drawings such as deer, gazelles, tigers and some mythical winged animals engraved on stones that constitute one side of the temple’s wall.
On the wall of the other side of the temple there is a block of stone 135 centimeters tall on which a full picture of a king with a crown on his head and a sword at his side, holding an engraved scepter and a bunch of plants in his hand. The findings are estimated to be dated between 100 and 300 AD, for the facial engraving is similar to those found in south-west Iran dating from this period, and the temple was built around the same time. “Though there is a word engraved in an ancient language above the king’s picture, pronounced ‘wedan’, it is not the name of the king.
It may have a religious meaning which specialists and future findings may shed light on this,” said Fuad al-Qashm, general manager of the Ibb bureau of archaeology and antiquities museums. Al-Qashm believes that the new discoveries are rare and that they have great importance, for they reveal an important period of Yemen’s history and civilization. Officials think that the findings are only a glimpse of what lies beneath the earth, as this region was the headquarters and capital of the Himyarite Kingdom established by King Thi Raidan in 115 BCE which lasted for 650 years.
The Himyarite Kingdom was the largest and most powerful ancient Yemeni state in southern Arabia between 300 and 525 BCE, because it expanded its power to the north and annexed the Saba state in Marib.
This created the first united kingdom in history 2000 years ago; called ‘Saba-Tho-Raidan’, headed by King Sharhabil Bin Ya’for Bin Abdo Karb Asa’d Asa’d al-Kamil, which controlled much of the east-west perfume and incense trade. The Ibb governorate witnessed the rise and fall of almost all Yemeni civilizations. Most state and kingdom capitals were there, with many remains surviving the wear of time.
Monday, March 17, 2008
New probe data sheds light on dark matter
By Josephine Wolff
Data transmissions by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) provide multiple insights into the formation of the universe and its infancy, said several University researchers who were involved in designing and launching the satellite. The probe’s mission is led by a partnership between NASA and the University, in collaboration with scientists at several other institutions.
The data allowed researchers to calculate a more precise estimate of the age of the universe, now thought to be 13.7 billion years old, with only a 120 million year margin of error, said physics professor Lyman Page, one of the team’s lead researchers. Page added that the satellite has also helped scientists determine what actual processes were going on when the universe was less than a billionth of a billionth of a second old.
“We can start to probe those earliest times with a new degree of confidence,” he said.
The pictures transmitted by the probe have also helped the researchers make important discoveries about the formation of the first stars.
“Currently the WMAP data is pretty much the only way to gain information as to when the universe was ionized by the first generation of stars,” said Eiichiro Komatsu, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas-Austin who worked on the WMAP project from 2001 to 2003, when he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton.
The data showed that the first stars must have formed during the first 500 million years after the Big Bang, astrophysics professor David Spergel ’82 said.
This discovery will have important implications for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2013 by NASA, Komatsu said.
“One of [the Webb Telescope’s] prime science goals is to see the sources of ... the first generation of stars directly,” Komatsu said. “It is important to know when a significant fraction of these sources were around, so that we know where to look using this telescope.”
Discovering dark matter
The WMAP transmissions also provide the first evidence for the existence of the mysterious dark matter astrophysicists have long suspected composes much of the universe.
“[WMAP data] implies that atoms make up only 5% of the universe,” Spergel said in an e-mail. “The next roughly 20% is made up of ‘dark matter,’ most likely a new class of subatomic particles that interact[s] only extremely weakly with normal matter. The remaining 75% is made up of ‘dark energy’ associated with empty space.”
Many scientists have suspected that dark matter exists, specifically particles called neutrinos, but its existence was never before confirmed by evidence, said Charles Bennett, WMAP’s principal investigator and a physics and astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins.
“Dark matter has never been detected directly in the laboratory; we’ve only inferred its existence from astronomical observations,” said Gary Hinshaw, an astrophysicist with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “Neutrinos have been detected, but not this kind. These are produced shortly after the Big Bang.”
The cosmic neutrino background that the probe shows is only a small fraction of the total dark matter in the universe, Hinshaw added.
“[The neutrino background] has always been assumed to be there ... [The] challenge was to actually see it in the data,” Komatsu said. “Particle physicists are detecting neutrinos on the ground, but those neutrinos are from the atmosphere, sun, or nuclear reactors. The energy of the cosmic neutrino background is at least a million times smaller than their neutrinos, which means that it is extremely difficult to detect them ... with the current technology.” Though the WMAP has helped clarify questions about dark matter, dark energy remains an unknown and unexpected quantity that the WMAP may help explain in the future, Bennett said.
Data transmissions by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) provide multiple insights into the formation of the universe and its infancy, said several University researchers who were involved in designing and launching the satellite. The probe’s mission is led by a partnership between NASA and the University, in collaboration with scientists at several other institutions.
The data allowed researchers to calculate a more precise estimate of the age of the universe, now thought to be 13.7 billion years old, with only a 120 million year margin of error, said physics professor Lyman Page, one of the team’s lead researchers. Page added that the satellite has also helped scientists determine what actual processes were going on when the universe was less than a billionth of a billionth of a second old.
“We can start to probe those earliest times with a new degree of confidence,” he said.
The pictures transmitted by the probe have also helped the researchers make important discoveries about the formation of the first stars.
“Currently the WMAP data is pretty much the only way to gain information as to when the universe was ionized by the first generation of stars,” said Eiichiro Komatsu, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas-Austin who worked on the WMAP project from 2001 to 2003, when he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton.
The data showed that the first stars must have formed during the first 500 million years after the Big Bang, astrophysics professor David Spergel ’82 said.
This discovery will have important implications for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2013 by NASA, Komatsu said.
“One of [the Webb Telescope’s] prime science goals is to see the sources of ... the first generation of stars directly,” Komatsu said. “It is important to know when a significant fraction of these sources were around, so that we know where to look using this telescope.”
Discovering dark matter
The WMAP transmissions also provide the first evidence for the existence of the mysterious dark matter astrophysicists have long suspected composes much of the universe.
“[WMAP data] implies that atoms make up only 5% of the universe,” Spergel said in an e-mail. “The next roughly 20% is made up of ‘dark matter,’ most likely a new class of subatomic particles that interact[s] only extremely weakly with normal matter. The remaining 75% is made up of ‘dark energy’ associated with empty space.”
Many scientists have suspected that dark matter exists, specifically particles called neutrinos, but its existence was never before confirmed by evidence, said Charles Bennett, WMAP’s principal investigator and a physics and astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins.
“Dark matter has never been detected directly in the laboratory; we’ve only inferred its existence from astronomical observations,” said Gary Hinshaw, an astrophysicist with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “Neutrinos have been detected, but not this kind. These are produced shortly after the Big Bang.”
The cosmic neutrino background that the probe shows is only a small fraction of the total dark matter in the universe, Hinshaw added.
“[The neutrino background] has always been assumed to be there ... [The] challenge was to actually see it in the data,” Komatsu said. “Particle physicists are detecting neutrinos on the ground, but those neutrinos are from the atmosphere, sun, or nuclear reactors. The energy of the cosmic neutrino background is at least a million times smaller than their neutrinos, which means that it is extremely difficult to detect them ... with the current technology.” Though the WMAP has helped clarify questions about dark matter, dark energy remains an unknown and unexpected quantity that the WMAP may help explain in the future, Bennett said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
