Aside from their abnormal growth rates, cancerous cells aren’t that much different from normal healthy tissue. That’s why radiation and chemo treatments can’t effectively target just tumors. However, a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic believe they’ve discovered a mechanism that can rein in cancer’s uninhibited growth by retraining these wayward cells to die like they’re supposed to . See, when cells get old and prepare to die, they’re supposed to stop dividing. This process is controlled by “biological processors” called microRNAs which feed the cell just enough of the PLEKHA7 protein to inhibit division. But in the case of cancer, the microRNAs don’t deliver enough of the protein and the cells begin to divide out of control, resulting in a tumor. In a recently published study in the journal Nature Cell Biology , the Mayo Clinic team found that by injecting microRNA directly into a tumor, PLEKHA7 levels returned to normal and the cancerous cells stop reproducing. “This is an unexpected finding, ” Chris Bakal, a specialist at the Institute for Cancer Research in London, told The Telegraph . “Normal cells touch each other and form junctions, then they shut down proliferation. If there is a way to turn that [process] back on, it would be a way to stop tumors from growing.” What’s more, the method has shown to be surprisingly effective against some especially aggressive forms of cancer, at least in initial lab tests. However, the researchers don’t believe this will be some magic bullet that cures cancer outright. “This important study solves a long-standing biological mystery, but we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves, ” Henry Scowcroft, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager, told The Telegraph . “There’s a long way to go before we know whether these findings, in cells grown in a laboratory, will help treat people with cancer. But it’s a significant step forward in understanding how certain cells in our body know when to grow, and when to stop. Understanding these key concepts is crucial to help continue the encouraging progress against cancer we’ve seen in recent years.” Still, any step forward in the fight against this disease will be a welcome one. [Image Credit: Scott Tysick / Getty Creative] Filed under: Science Comments Via: Telegraph , Quartz Source: Nature Tags: cancer, chemo, MayoClinic, medicine, microRNA, PLEKHA7, protein, radiation, tumor
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Researchers may have found a cancer cell’s ‘off’ switch
New submitter club77er writes with a link to a DSL Reports article outlining some hefty subsidies (about $3 billion, all told) that CenturyLink has signed up to receive, in exchange for expanding its coverage to areas considered underserved: According to the CenturyLink announcement, the telco will take $500 million a year for six years from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Connect America Fund (CAF). In exchange, it will expand broadband to approximately 1.2 million rural households and businesses in 33 states. While the FCC now defines broadband as 25 Mbps down, these subsidies require that the deployed services be able to provide speeds of at least 10 Mbps down. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
