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Using environmentally friendly light bulbs can be seriously bad for your skin, doctors warn. New energy-saving bulbs produce a more intense light which can cause eruptions of existing skin problems, like eczema, and even lead to skin cancer, they claim. The revelation comes after health experts warned the fluorescent bulbs, which are to become compulsory in homes within four years, could trigger migraines and cause dizziness and discomfort to people with epilepsy. The lives of thousands of people may be threatened if the government's plan to phase out the normal variety of incandescent lighting goes ahead without exemptions. Sufferers could...

Story ideas from the Journal of Biological Chemistry By American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Most people wouldn’t consider anthrax toxin to be beneficial, but this bacterial poison may someday be an effective cancer therapy. Anthrax toxin has actually been shown to be fairly selective in targeting melanoma cells, although the risk of non-cancer toxicity prevents any clinical use. To develop a better and safer treatment, Stephen Leppla and colleagues created a mutated antrax toxin that could only be turned on by matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), proteins that are overproduced only in cancer cells. When they tested this mutated toxin...

My brother-in-law, Alan, is scheduled to undergo surgery Monday for melanoma. He is a seven year melanoma survivor. Alan is a good man who has raised two fine boys and has two granddaughters. Thank you. -Jeff

I'm punched in the gut with shock. I was just told that the 28 yr. old son, an only child, of one of my co-workers is in the ICU with terminal melanoma. One of his lungs is already filled with a tumor. I knew something was afoot, but we never found a moment alone for her to tell me the last time I saw her (I work from home and she's at the office). She kept it very private .. until she couldn't anymore. I would be most grateful for prayers for Mike and his family. Dear Lord, I just...

WASHINGTON — Government scientists turned regular blood cells into tumor attackers that wiped out all signs of cancer in two men with advanced melanoma. The striking finding, unveiled Thursday, marks an important step in the quest for gene therapy for cancer. But the genetically altered cells didn't help 15 other melanoma victims. So scientists are trying to strengthen the shots. Still, the National Cancer Institute called its experiment the first real success in cancer gene therapy — because it fought cancer's worst stage, when it has spread through the body, unlike earlier attempts that targeted single tumors. And the government...

In a first for gene therapy, researchers have successfully treated cancer patients by genetically modifying their immune cells to attack tumors. Although the treatment worked in only two of 17 patients, the researchers say this proof of concept, reported online today in Science, should pave the way for more gene-therapy cancer cures. Steven Rosenberg's group at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, has been working on ways to rev up immune cells to vanquish cancer for 2 decades. A few years ago, the researchers removed tumor-attacking immune cells called T cells from melanoma patients, grew more in the...

Government scientists saved two men dying of melanoma by genetically altering their own white blood cells to attack their tumors -- deemed the first major success in battling cancer with gene therapy. Though the men appear disease-free almost two years after the experimental therapy, it wasn't a panacea. Fifteen other melanoma victims weren't helped. The National Cancer Institute is trying to strengthen the shots. Still, specialists proclaimed the work, published today by the journal Science, an important advance -- gene therapy with the potential to fight cancer's worst stage, when it has spread through the body. The NCI hopes to...

Gray hairs may unlock mysteries of skin cancer WASHINGTON — No doubt many researchers have gotten gray hair trying to find ways to defeat cancer. Now scientists say gray hair itself may yield clues to fighting the deadly disease. It turns out that melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer, involves melanocytes, the cells that help color hair and skin.So researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston decided to investigate what happens when these cells become depleted, allowing hair to go gray.“Preventing the graying of hair is not our goal,” said senior researcher David E. Fisher. “What we...

A cloning experiment in mice indicates that for one type of cancer, at least, cancerous cells may be able to revert to normal. But the study does not reveal a way to cure cancer. Instead, it addresses a theoretical question about the genetic nature of one type of cancer. In their experiment, published in the current issue of the journal Genes and Development, the investigators cloned mouse embryos from a melanoma skin cancer cell. Using cells from these embryos, they created healthy adult mice who had some cells derived from the cloned cancer cells, showing that malignancy is not the...

Implant May Save Vision, Lives People with eye cancer face the prospect of losing their eyesight and even their lives. But a new procedure could keep them alive and their vision intact. Bill Grieb, a husband of 37 years and a grandfather of six, first noticed something wrong with his vision on the golf course. The avid golfer suddenly couldn't focus on the ball. "It looked like when someone would take a flash photo of you," said Grieb. "It was the bright flash in your eye. … And I thought it was the reflection of the sun off my glasses."...

Babies -- Bought, Sold and Traded LONDON, SEPT. 17, 2005 (Zenit.org) Abortion advocates' decades-long push to deny or downplay the humanity of the unborn child is bearing fruit. Unborn children are increasingly being treated like consumer products, if recent news stories are an indication. Last Saturday the London-based Times published a story describing how the Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in Kharkov, sells baby parts. The list on its Web site offers a variety of cells and other tissues from babies. The institute alleges that the material comes from fetuses...

Baby Susan Torres Dies From Infection After Miraculous Birth Arlington, VA (LifeNews.com) -- Little baby Susan Torres died last night after battling a severe infection. She became the subject of international attention after her father decided to allow her mother to remain alive to give birth following a tragic car accident rather than letting both mother and baby die. In an email provided to LifeNews.com, Justin Torres, baby Susan's uncle, said she passed away following an infection. An emergency surgery was unsuccessful. "I am saddened to have to report that, following emergency surgery that we had hoped would correct a...

The nation is in the grip of what looks like a terrifying melanoma epidemic: melanoma is being diagnosed at more than double the rate it was in 1986, increasing faster than any other major cancer. But why the numbers are increasing is a contentious subject, so touchy that one dermatologist called it "the third rail of dermatology." Many dermatologists argue that melanoma, the most deadly of the skin cancers, is in fact becoming more common. And they recommend regular skin cancer screening as the best way to save lives. But some specialists say that what the numbers represent is not...

A nanocell that can burrow into a tumour, cut off its blood supply and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins has been developed.The double-action therapy, which comes packed in a tiny double chamber, leaves healthy cells unscathed. It has proved safe and effective against melanoma and a form of lung cancer in mice. Details of the technique, developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are published in Nature. The technique combines two methods of combating cancer - poisoning tumour cells and cutting off the blood supply to the tumour. Previously, the dual strategy has proved difficult as chemotherapy could...

The outdoor season is now in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere, and with it comes a growing concern about melanoma, the fastest rising cancer in the world. Once considered a rare form of skin cancer, as well as the most deadly, melanoma today is hardly uncommon. In fact, it is the most common cause of cancer in women ages 25 through 29 and second only to lung cancer in women 30 through 34. Not that men are spared. This year, the American Cancer Society estimates that 33,580 cases of melanoma will be diagnosed in men in the United States,...

Posted on Fri, Jul. 23, 2004 Dermatologist challenges sun-melanoma link By Gina Kolata NEW YORK TIMES Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman, a dermatologist, spends much of his time diagnosing the potentially deadly cancer melanoma and other skin diseases. But when he returned from a recent trip to Israel, he was, well, deeply tanned. Burnished brown, in fact. Ackerman did not use sunscreen on his trip. He did not give any thought to the hundreds of moles that speckle his body. He did not even put a hat on his bald head. Other dermatologists may worry about getting melanoma from exposure to...

Anthrax altered to fight cancer Friday, July 04, 2003By Kathleen LongcoreThe Grand Rapids Press Researchers in Grand Rapids say an anthrax-based drug is showing promise in treating the deadly skin cancer melanoma -- and possibly other life-threatening cancers. The researchers at the Van Andel Research Institute are partnering with Wake Forest University Health Sciences in North Carolina to produce a drug called tumor lethal factor (TLF) in preparation for clinical trials. The drug, a component of a nonvirulent anthrax toxin, will be tested on animals first and is several years from reaching cancer patients. But laboratory success in killing melanoma...

WORLD-first Melbourne research into a little-known but deadly skin cancer could save thousands of lives. Australia has the highest rate of melanomas in the world / AP Up to 350 Australians die a year because of this cancer, which begins as a tiny pink pimple-like tumour. But breakthrough research is set to shake up how the public and doctors check for melanomas. Alfred hospital doctors found that nodular melanomas accounted for less than 15 per cent of melanoma cancers but caused up to 70 per cent of the deadliest type, called deep melanomas. Most people look only for irregular-shaped brown/black...

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Flooding the body with laboratory-engineered white blood cells shriveled melanoma tumors in a small group of seriously ill patients, leaving some virtually free of the disease, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. A team led by Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute used amplified lymphocytes _ the body's white blood cells _ to attack melanoma tumors in 13 patients. Ten of those patients are still alive, four are ``virtually cancer free'' and two others have experienced ``substantial'' shrinkage of their tumors, Rosenberg said. Rosenberg, who has spent years developing ways to...