Expert Calls for New Cancer Research Priorities
Prof. Richard Sullivan at the recent "The Burden of Cancer - How Can it be Reduced" conference in Slovenia.
Berlin, Germany: Cancer research is too focused on new drug development, while not enough money and effort is being devoted to pursuing important advances in knowledge likely to have the biggest impact on combating the disease in the next few decades, a leading research policy expert says, adding that a major shift in research priorities will be crucial to the ability to cope with the coming wave of cancer cases.
Professor Richard Sullivan of the King’s Health Partners Integrated Cancer Centre in London told Europe’s largest cancer congress, ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 [1], in Berlin today (Tuesday 22 September) that studies aiming to improve surgery, pathology and diagnostic and staging imaging, as well as a radical rethink of the approach to prevention research, must become the focus of public- and federally-funded cancer research now. The global public sector spend on cancer research was about €14 billion a year in 2004/05, the latest year for which figures are available. Non-commercial funders in Europe spent just over €3 billion on cancer research in 2004/05. (more…)
Chemistry Lab on a Chip
This is a microfluidic device held in the palm of the hand. (UCLA)
Microchip technology performs 1,000 chemical reactions at once.
Technique may accelerate drug discovery for cancer, other diseases.
Flasks, beakers and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a bench top, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results — literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.
Toward that end, UCLA researchers have developed technology to perform more than a thousand chemical reactions at once on a stamp-size, PC-controlled microchip, which could accelerate the identification of potential drug candidates for treating diseases like cancer. (more…)
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