Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new approach to quantify tumor-specific total mRNA levels from patient tumor samples, which contain both cancer and non-cancer cells. Using this technique on tumors from more than 6,500 patients across 15 cancer types, the researchers demonstrated that higher mRNA levels in cancer cells were associated with reduced patient survival.   The study suggests this computational approach could permit large-scale analyses of tumor-specific total mRNA...

Doctors at Houston Methodist Neuroscience & Spine Center at Sugar Land continue to advance neurological care with new technologies that improve patient treatment and safety.   “We are seeing rising numbers of stroke patients across the country, due to a variety of factors,” said Tsz Lau, M.D., a board-certified neurosurgeon at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. “We need to be able to treat more patients, faster, to ensure that we are protecting brain function and...

The path to cancer prevention is long and arduous for legions of researchers, but new work by Rice University scientists shows that there may be shortcuts. Rice chemist Anatoly Kolomeisky, lead author and postdoctoral researcher Hamid Teimouri and research assistant Cade Spaulding are developing a theoretical framework to explain how cancers caused by more than one genetic mutation can be more easily identified and perhaps stopped.   Essentially, it does so by identifying and ignoring transition pathways that don’t contribute...