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Tiller's Patients, Not Critics, Should Be Ones To 'Define His Memory,' Opinion Piece Says
In a "portrayal that defied logic," George Tiller -- the Kansas abortion provider who was murdered last month -- has been depicted "on Web sites, TV and radio talk shows and in legislative hearings as the reckless "abortionist," willing to euthanize babies close to birth just so the mother could fit into a prom dress or attend a rock concert," Barbara Shelly, a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board, writes in a Star opinion piece. She asks, "Would someone in the third trimester of pregnancy travel to the heart of Kansas and pay a $6,000 fee just to fit into a size six party dress?" Shelly adds that the "overwhelming majority of the 250 to 300 women a year" that sought abortions from Tiller in the second and third trimesters had planned their pregnancies. She profiles a Missouri college professor, pregnant with twins, who traveled to Tiller"s clinic with her husband to obtain an abortion after an amniocentesis revealed that neither fetus would survive and that she faced potentially life-threatening complications if the pregnancy continued. Shelly writes that the woman and others like her went to Tiller "heartbroken and afraid, carrying fetuses with malfunctioning kidneys, missing organs and syndromes certain to cause death in the womb or soon after birth." A smaller number were survivors of rape and incest, including young girls, according to Shelly. The "prom queen who talked her way into a late-term abortion" is a "creation of Tiller"s enemies," Shelly writes, concluding that the "real people" affected by his death are the "thousands who wrote the notes that now serve as a memorial wall to a fallen physician. They are the ones who should define his memory" (Shelly, Kansas City Star, 6/9).
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Cooperativity Of TMPRSS2-ERGwith PI3-Kinase Pathway Activation In Prostate Oncogenesis
UroToday.com - Two papers in the May 5, 2009 edition of Nature Genetics link ERG chromosomal gene translocations with loss of PTEN and the PI3-kinase pathway in the early stages of prostate cancer (CaP) progression. Both are reviewed by Urotoday.
News of the day
One Force Behind The MYC Oncogene In Many Cancers Uncovered By Fox Chase Researchers
DLX5, a gene crucial for embryonic development, promotes cancer by activating the expression of the known oncogene, MYC, according to researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center. Since the DLX5 gene is inactive in normal adults, it may be an ideal target for future anti-cancer drugs, they reason. Their findings are published in the July 31 edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, available online now.
Diagnostics

Study Provides Documentation That Tumor "Stem-like Cells" Exist In Benign Tumors

Cancer stem-like cells have been implicated in the genesis of a variety of malignant cancers. Research scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center"s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have isolated stem-like cells in benign (pituitary) tumors and used these "mother" cells to generate new tumors in laboratory mice. Targeting the cells of origin is seen as a possible strategy in the fight against malignant and benign tumors. Cells generated from the pituitary tumor cells had the same genetic makeup and characteristics as the original tumors and were capable of generating new tumors, according to an article in the July 2009 issue of the British Journal of Cancer, posted online June 30. Normal stem cells have the ability to self-renew and the potential to "differentiate" into any of several types of cells. Tumor stem-like cells appear to have the same self-renewing and multipotent properties, but instead of producing healthy cells, they propagate tumor cells. In this study, benign tumor stem-like cells were analyzed for their genetic makeup and behavior. Pituitary adenomas have unusual characteristics that provided significant clues about several types of stem cells. The pituitary gland, situated at the base of the brain behind the nose, is stimulated by hormones from the hypothalamus gland to produce a variety of hormones that control other glands throughout the body. About half of all pituitary adenomas - which arise from pituitary gland tissue - also have this hormone-producing capability. In these studies, the scientists isolated stem-like cells from both hormone-producing and non-producing pituitary adenomas that had been surgically removed from eight patients. Laboratory experiments focused on tumor stem cells from one tumor that produced growth hormone and one tumor that produced no hormones. Both types of stem-like cells were found to be self-renewable and multipotent, meaning they expressed proteins that could enable their offspring to differentiate into several types of cells. Studies also showed that both hormone-producing and non-producing tumor stem cells can be differentiated into hormone-producing cells, with the specific hormones produced being determined by the characteristics of the original pituitary tumor. Consistent with the researchers" earlier findings in cancer stem-like cells of malignant brain tumors, the tumor stem cells - but not the "daughter" cells - appeared to be resistant to chemotherapy. This suggests that even if most of a tumor"s cells can be killed, stem-like cells may survive and regenerate the tumor. When tumor stem-like cells were implanted into laboratory mice, they generated new tumors that had the same genetic composition and characteristics as the original tumors. Cells from the new tumors, later transplanted into other mice, maintained the same tumor-specific properties. "Although previous studies have offered evidence of the existence of stem-like cells in pituitary adenomas, in this study we scrutinized these cells for composition and function, demonstrating that stem-like cells exist in benign tumors," said neurosurgeon John S. Yu, M.D., director of Surgical Neuro-oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is senior author of the journal article. Although pituitary adenomas are typically noncancerous, they can cause significant injury or illness, either by compressing important structures, such as the optic nerve, or by creating hormone imbalances that can have wide-ranging and serious consequences. Identifying the mechanisms that enable these and other tumors to form may provide unique targets for new, more effective therapies. "From our work with cancer stem-like cells in malignant brain cancers, it appears that stem cells from different cancers - or possibly even within the same tumor - may use different signaling pathways and have different implications for disease progression and prognosis. Findings from the pituitary tumor study generally support the cancer stem cell hypothesis, suggesting that similar mechanisms may be involved in the generation of both malignant and benign tumors," said Keith L. Black, M.D., chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai. "Confirmation of the existence of stem-like cells in benign tumors is intriguing," said Yu, "but many questions remain to be answered, particularly in defining the molecular mechanisms involved. We need to find out if there is any relationship between tumor stem cells and normal pituitary stem cells, and how stem cells from benign tumors are different from and similar to those of malignant tumors." Research scientists from Cedars-Sinai"s departments of Neurosurgery, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Surgery participated in these studies, which were partly funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Italian Association for Neurological Research (ARIN). Citation: "Isolation of tumour stem-like cells from benign tumours." July 2009: http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v101/n2/abs/6605142a.html British Journal of Cancer Cedars-Sinai Medical Center


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