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TIBCO Spotfire Supports Top Scientists At German Cancer Research Center, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum
Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, are using the enterprise analytics platform from TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) for scientific research. This research includes looking at the mechanisms behind the causes of cancer, development of custom-tailored drugs, and understanding the types of cancer caused by infections.
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NYT Opinion Piece Calls For 'Reasonable Distinction-Making' Between Abortions At Various Stages Of Pregnancy
The case of George Tiller, the Kansas abortion provider who was recently murdered, "helps explain why so many people believe that abortion should be available at any stage of pregnancy," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes. Because Tiller provided abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, he "inevitably ... handled the hardest of hard cases," according to Douthat. He continues that since Tiller"s murder, "there"s been an outpouring of testimonials, across the Internet, from women (and some men) who lived through these hard cases." Douthat adds that these patients" experiences "help explain why so many Americans defend [Tiller"s] right" to perform abortions later in pregnancy. However, "such narratives are not the only story about George Tiller"s clinic," as he "was a target of protests -- and, tragically, of terrorist violence -- because he performed late-term abortions, period," Douthat writes. According to Douthat, Tiller"s critics claim that he performed abortions later in pregnancy "not only in truly desperate situations, but in many other cases as well." Although a final determination about "how many of George Tiller"s abortions were performed on healthy mothers and healthy fetuses" might never be made, "most abortions in the United States bear no resemblance whatsoever to the hardest third-trimester cases," according to Douthat. He continues, "Yes, many pregnancies are terminated in dire medical circumstances," but "these represent a tiny fraction of the million-plus abortions that take place in this country every year," and the "same is true of the more than 100,000 abortions that are performed after the first trimester: Very few involve medical complications of any kind." Douthat writes, "The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the idea that where there are exceptions, there cannot be a rule." He adds, "As a matter of moral philosophy, this makes a certain sense," as a fetus either "has a claim to life or it doesn"t," and the "circumstances of its conception and the state of its health shouldn"t enter into the equation." However, he continues, "the law is not a philosophy seminar. It"s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense," and "it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons." Douthat also writes that the "argument that some abortions take place in particularly awful, particularly understandable circumstances is not a case against regulating abortion." He adds, "It"s the beginning of precisely the kind of reasonable distinction-making that would produce a saner, stricter legal regime."According to Douthat, "If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically," and "[a]rguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester -- as many advanced democracies already do -- would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions." Douthat concludes, "The result would be laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases -- and a political debate, God willing, unmarred by crimes like George Tiller"s murder" (Douthat, New York Times, 6/9).
News of the day
Revealing Leukemia-Initiating Cells
Two new studies reveal a way to increase the body"s appetite for gobbling up the cancer stem cells responsible for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a form of cancer with a particularly poor survival rate. The key is targeting a protein on the surface of those cells that sends a "don"t eat me" signal to the macrophage immune cells that serve as a first line of defense, according to the reports in the July 24th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.
Public Health

Cancer Therapy Success May Be Determined Using MRI And Oxygen

A simple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test involving breathing oxygen might help oncologists determine the best treatment for some cancer patients, report researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Prior research has shown that the amount of oxygen present in a tumor can be a predictor of how well a patient will respond to treatment. Tumors with little oxygen tend to grow stronger and resist both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Until now, however, the only way to gauge the oxygen level in a tumor, and thus determine which treatment might be more effective, was to insert a huge needle directly into the cancerous tumor. The new technique, known as BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) MRI, can detect oxygen levels in tumors without the need for an invasive procedure. The patient need only be able to breathe in oxygen when undergoing an MRI. "The patient simply inhales pure oxygen, which then circulates through the bloodstream, including to the tumors," said Dr. Ralph Mason, professor of radiology, director of the UT Southwestern Cancer Imaging Center and senior author of a study appearing online and in a future edition of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. "Using MRI, we can then go in and estimate how much oxygen a particular tumor is taking up, providing us some insight into how the tumor is behaving and what sort of treatment might be effective." The most important finding, Dr. Mason said, is that BOLD MRI performed as well as the standard yet more invasive procedure for viewing tumors. That method, known as FREDOM (fluorocarbon relaxometry using echo planar imaging for dynamic oxygen mapping) MRI, requires the injection of a chemical called a reporter molecule directly into the tumor. "The BOLD technique appears to indicate accurately the oxygen levels in tumors," Dr. Mason said. "Because BOLD is immediately applicable to patients, this holds promise as a new method for predicting response to therapy." BOLD MRI has been used extensively in studying brain function, but the procedure has only recently begun to be used to assess blood oxygenation and vascular function in tumors. Physicians at UT Southwestern are already testing BOLD MRI in patients with cervical, prostate, and head and neck cancer. They have proposed using it in lung cancer patients as well, Dr. Mason said. Previous research has shown that those specific tumor types are more likely to have little oxygen. In the published study, researchers took multiple images of breast tumors implanted just below the skin of rats, which were given anesthesia to help them remain still during the imaging process. Humans do not require anesthesia, Dr. Mason said. Dr. Mason said the team took the research back to the preclinical stage because they needed to better define what physicians were seeing in the clinic and whether the findings were reproducible. Dr. Mason said that examining each form of cancer in this way presents its own technical challenges. For example, the motion of the lungs or the design of a face mask for breathing oxygen must be taken into account. "If we can prove that the test is meaningful in animals, then it is that much more worthwhile to argue for doing it in a patient. This preclinical work provides the foundation for future clinical studies," Dr. Mason said. "It helps justify doing a larger clinical trial with the goal of ultimately becoming a diagnostic test for oncologists." Researchers currently are trying to determine how much oxygen must be inhaled by a patient in order to be effective. The next step is to expand studies in patients and prove the relevance to more tumor types. Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the research were Dr. Dawen Zhao, lead author and assistant professor of radiology; Dr. Lan Jiang, a postdoctoral researcher in radiation oncology; and Dr. Eric Hahn, consultant in radiology. The work was supported by the Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute. The MRI experiments were performed in UT Southwestern"s Advanced Imaging Research Center, an NIH-funded basic and translational research facility. Kristen Holland Shear UT Southwestern Medical Center


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