Does chemo make cancer worse?

The most exciting science headlines of the week were undoubtedly based on an exciting new study published in Science Translational Medicine showing that chemotherapy can promote breast cancer metastasis. Media coverage on the subject has varied from highly sensationalist to more sensible – and for once, the panic-striken ALL CAPITALS approach doesn’t seem like it’s out of place. … Read more

Is Shampoo Dangerous?

As a scientist, it is part of my job to keep tabs on new scientific discoveries and recent publications. It was in this context that I recently ran into a fascinating paper by researchers at the University Of Cambridge looking into how formaldehyde (a known carcinogen) selectively destroys BRCA2 – a protein in the cell … Read more

Stopping The Danger From Within: New Hope For Breast Cancer Patients From Immunotherapy

Last week some truly exciting work on new therapies for breast cancer patients was published in Science Translational Medicine. These results show how it might be possible in the near future to target immune checkpoints in breast cancer – a malignancy previously thought to be resistant to this type of therapy. An immune checkpoint is a rather … Read more

Why are so many people getting cancer?

We are undoubtedly in the middle of what has been described as a “cancer epidemic”. The risk of contracting cancer has risen by over 10% over a single generation and is expected to increase by over 20% between 2010 and 2020. This means that in three years’ time there will be about 2 million people diagnosed with cancer … Read more

Spotting Cancer: New Hope From Biomarkers

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer known to modern medicine. The chances of a pancreatic cancer patient to survive for five years after being diagnosed with the disease is only 7%. As a term of comparison, a breast cancer patient has around 85% chance of surviving for over 5 years from … Read more

Are Tomatoes The Cure For Cancer?

As a cancer scientist and someone interested in the ever-evolving relationship between science and the media, my eye was caught this week by the flashy headlines claiming that good-old tomatoes might just be the cure for gastric cancer. All the media fuss appears to stem from a paper accepted last week in the Journal Of … Read more