A team of scientists from Princess Margaret Hospital have created an organic nanoparticle that is completely non-toxic, biodegradable and nimble in the way it uses light and heat to treat cancer and deliver drugs. (A nanoparticle is a minute molecule with novel properties).
The findings, published online today in Nature Materials (DOI: 10.1038/NMAT2986) are significant because unlike other nanoparticles, the new nanoparticle has a unique and versatile structure that could potentially change the way tumors are treated, says principal investigator Dr. Gang Zheng, Senior Scientist, Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), Princess Margaret Hospital at University Health Network.
Dr. Zheng says: “In the lab, we combined two naturally occurring molecules (chlorophyll and lipid) to create a unique nanoparticle that shows promise for numerous diverse light-based (biophotonic) applications. The structure of the nanoparticle, which is like a miniature and colorful water balloon, means it can also be filled with drugs to treat the tumor it is targeting.”

The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Introduces Jill’s LegacyGroup of young adults takes aim at the world’s #1 cancer killer
San Francisco, CA, March 8, 2011/PRNewsire-USNewswire/—The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (BJALCF), a worldwide leader in efforts to eliminate Lung Cancer, announced today that they have launched the creation of a new Advisory Board made up of 21 promising young professionals who have each been personally touched by Lung Cancer. The Board has been called “Jill’s Legacy” in memorial of the 22-year-old college student and athlete at U.C. Berkeley, Jillian Costello, who lost her battle with Lung Cancer in June of 2010, just one year after being diagnosed.

Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca today announced Porsche Rennsport Reunion IV will take place at the famed California racetrack the weekend of October 14 – 16, 2011.

Sponsored by PCNA, Rennsport Reunion IV brings together an unprecedented gathering of significant Porsche vintage and current race cars, as well those who have driven them to victory in the world’s most famous sports car races. The three-day program of on-track competition is complemented by a concours d’elegance, which is open to invited race participants, and special activities celebrating the decades-long history of the legendary 911 race cars.

After the highly successful staging of three venues in the East, held every three years, with the first one held in Lime Rock in 2001, Rennsport Reunion IV will now be moving west, tapping a vast array of car aficionados and Porsche enthusiasts.

The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (BJALCF), a worldwide leader in efforts to eliminate Lung Cancer, announced today that they have launched the creation of a new Advisory Board made up of 21 promising young professionals who have each been personally touched by Lung Cancer. The Board has been called “Jill’s Legacy” in memorial of the 22-year-old college student and athlete at U.C. Berkeley, Jillian Costello, who lost her battle with Lung Cancer in June of 2010, just one year after being diagnosed.

Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca today announced Porsche Rennsport Reunion IV will take place at the famed California racetrack the weekend of October 14 – 16, 2011.

Sponsored by PCNA, Rennsport Reunion IV brings together an unprecedented gathering of significant Porsche vintage and current race cars, as well those who have driven them to victory in the world’s most famous sports car races. The three-day program of on-track competition is complemented by a concours d’elegance, which is open to invited race participants, and special activities celebrating the decades-long history of the legendary 911 race cars.

In honor of Jillian Costello, a young student and athlete at U.C. Berkeley, who past away from lung cancer a year after she was diagnosed, on March 7th 2011, the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (BJALCF) has launched a new advisory board called “Jill’s Legacy.”

A LUNG cancer patient has received the world’s first graft of an artificial airway after surgeons at a Paris hospital inserted a replacement bronchial tube.

The operation, at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny, meant they did not have to remove the 78-year-old patient’s lung, a procedure that has a very high mortality rate.

Thoracic surgeon Emmanuel Martinod, who carried out the surgery in October 2009, said that the artificial bronchus gave the surgical team better safety margins as they removed the cancer which had invaded the man’s airway and lung.

Scientists are reporting discovery of a protein in the blood of lung cancer patients that could be used in a test for the disease — difficult to diagnose in its earliest and most treatable stages — and to develop drugs that stop lung cancer from spreading. Their study appears in ACS’sJournal of Proteome Research.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that patients with node negative T3 and T4 non-small lung cancer who underwent chemotherapy before surgery had more than three times the survival rate than patients who only underwent surgery. These findings currently appear on-line in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

Fish oil may counter weight loss in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, according to a new study published in the online edition of the journal Cancer.

In the study, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, enrolled 40 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. They were all in the early stages of treatment. Sixteen of those patients took 2.2 grams of fish oil per day, while the remaining 24 received standard care. The study, which lasted about 10 weeks, ran until the patients completed their initial chemotherapy treatments.