A Worldwide Support Network For Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
Posted by rob on August 22, 2005 under Uncategorized | 
Be the First to Comment
A horse grazes as a rainbow appears in the sky on the Son-Kul plateau, 3013 metres above sea level located on the ancient Great Silk Road from Kashgar to Bishkek.
Posted by rob on under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
Racevskis J
Med Oncol. 2005; 22(3): 325-6
Dramatic advances in molecular biology over the past decades have led to an unprecedented understanding of cancer at a very detailed molecular level. The application of microarray technology, for example, has made it possible to characterize the expression of every human gene in any specific tumor. As a result of this detailed characterization of cancers, novel therapies that target specific gene products characteristic of a given tumor have been developed, and are being introduced at a rapid rate. Three therapeutic agents of this class, which are currently in clinical use and can be dramatically effective in some patients, are Glivec, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets the fusion gene product BCR/ABL common to chronic myelogenous leukemia; Herceptin, which targets the HER-2/neu antigen expressed in about a quarter of breast cancers; and Iressa an inhibitor of receptor tyrosine kinases, which is spectacularly effective in a subgroup of lung cancer patients with mutations in their epidermal growth factor receptor genes.As more and more of these molecularly targeted therapies come into use for treatment and management of cancers, there will be a surge in the demand for very precise molecular diagnostic techniques that can identify those cancers that are treatable and susceptible to each specific therapy. It is the editors’ contention that many diagnosticians are not trained in this new and expanding field of molecular cancer diagnosis and would therefore benefit from a compilation of the most current techniques.A selection of techniques that are currently available to attain a detailed molecular characterization of various cancers is compiled in this volume. Given the vastness of this field and rapid rate of advances, it was obviously not possible to cover all possible aspects of molecular cancer diagnosis; however, the specific techniques described cover most areas of molecular diagnosis and todays’ most powerful technologies. Although some of the techniques covered in this volume are quite standard and not new, such as RT-PCR, nucleic acid extraction, etc., it is useful to have them all included in one volume along with the more cutting edge technologies. Some of the techniques covered in this volume include FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization)-based methodologies currently in use for diagnosis of tumors, genetic abnormality detection by DNA and sequence-specific oligonucleotide array technologies, quantitative PCR, and many others.
Molecular diagnosis of cancer: methods and protocols, second edition.
