DTN News: Technology News TODAY January 08, 2010 ~ 250 Million Old Mass Extinction May Be Causing Lung Cancer In A Chinese Region

DTN News: Technology News TODAY January 08, 2010 ~ 250 Million Old Mass Extinction May Be Causing Lung Cancer In A Chinese Region *Source: DTN News / China National News (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - January 08, 2010: A new study has shown that the volcanic eruptions thought responsible for Earth's largest mass extinction 250 million years ago has been linked to unusually high rates of lung cancer in a particular area of China.Coal from China's Xuan Wei County, widely used for cooking and heating, may contribute to unusually high rates of lung cancer among women in the region. Credit: US Department of Energy

The study shows for the first time that the high silica content of coal in one region of China, which may have been released by volcanic eruptions 250 million years ago, may be interacting with volatile substances in the coal to cause unusually high rates of lung cancer.

The study, by scientist David Large and colleagues, note that parts of China's Xuan Wei County in Yunnan Province have the world's highest incidence of lung cancer in nonsmoking women - 20 times higher than the rest of China.

Women in the region heat their homes and cook on open coal-burning stoves that are not vented to the outside.

Scientists believe that indoor emissions from burning coal cause cancer, but are unclear why the lung cancer rates in this region are so much higher than other areas.

Earlier studies show a strong link between certain volatile substances, called PAHs, in coal smoke and lung cancer in the region.

The scientists found that coal used in parts of Xuan Wei County had about 10 times more silica, a suspected carcinogen, than US coal.

Silica may work in conjunction with PAHs to make the coal more carcinogenic, they indicate.

The scientists also found that this high-silica coal was formed 250 million years ago, at a time when massive volcanic eruptions worked to deposit silica in the peat that formed Xuan Wei's coal.

Related Info: Research by DTN News:

More information: "Silica-Volatile Interaction and the Geological Cause of the Xuan Wei Lung Cancer Epidemic", http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/es902033j

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DTN News: Medical Science TODAY August 29, 2009 ~ Tick Saliva Could Hold Cancer Cure By Brazilian Scientists

DTN News: Medical Science TODAY August 29, 2009 ~ Tick Saliva Could Hold Cancer Cure By Brazilian Scientists

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) SAO PAULO, Brazil - August 29, 2009: It may be one of nature's repulsive little blood-sucking parasites, but the humble tick could yield a future cure for cancers of the skin, liver and pancreas, Brazilian researchers have discovered. View of an Amblyomma cajennense. Brazilian reasearchers have identified a protein in the saliva of the South American tick that apparently reduces and can even eradicate cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone. They have identified a protein in the saliva of a common South American tick, Amblyomma cajennense, that apparently reduces and can even eradicate cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone. "This is a radical innovation," said Ana Marisa Chudzinski-Tavassi, the molecular biologist at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo who is leading the research. "The component of the saliva of this tick... could be the cure for cancer," she told AFP. She said she stumbled on the properties of the protein, called Factor X active, while testing the anti-coagulant properties of the tick's saliva -- the way it stops blood thickening and clotting so the tick can keep gorging itself on its host. The protein shares some characteristics with a common anti-coagulant called TFPI (Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor), specifically a Kunitz-type inhibitor which also has been shown to interfere with cell growth. A theory that the protein might have an effect on cancerous cells led to laboratory tests on cell cultures -- which exceeded all expectations. "To our surprise it didn't kill normal cells, which were also tested," Chudzinski-Tavassi said. "But it did kill the tumorous cells that were being analyzed." In her modest lab in the institute, housed in a rundown building, a line of immobile bloated ticks could be seen lined up with straws under their heads. The small amounts of saliva captured that way was reproduced many times over in yeast vats so that tests could be carried out on lab rats with cancer. The results have been more than promising. "If I treat every day for 14 days an animal's tumor, a small tumor, this tumor doesn't develop -- it even regresses. The tumor mass shrinks. If I treat for 42 days, you totally eliminate the tumor," the scientist said. Producing a medicine from the find, though, will require years of clinical tests and a significant financial investment -- neither of which Brazil is geared to provide. Chudzinski-Tavassi has applied for a patent on the tick protein, and is presenting her team's discovery in medical journals and conferences around the world. But she says moving beyond her lab "proof of concept" will be frustratingly difficult. "To discover this is one thing. To turn it into a medicine is a whole other thing entirely," she said.