Trending News Today: Researchers Use Zebrafish to Study Bone Marrow Alternatives

Investigators from the University of California San Diego of Medicine are using zebrafish and human cells to determine how to grow blood stem cells in a laboratory dish in order to meet the growing demand for blood stem cells for patients with leukemia or lymphoma. They discovered that when 1 Wnt signal molecule—a major driver of embryonic and blood cell development—is received by a blood stem cell, 3 molecules are involved, including the epidermal growth factor receptor, an important component of cancer treatment. By using zebrafish, investigators have unraveled how these molecules are received so as to mimic the process in a laboratory setting, thereby generating human blood stem cells, according to the study.

A new study through Tufts University reveals that cancer risk is more closely associated with poor diet than previously expected. An estimated 80,110 new cancer cases among adults 20 years and older in the United States in 2015 were linked to a poor diet, according to CNN. It also found that a 10% increase in ultraprocessed foods, which accounts for approximately 60% of calories in the average American diet, leads to a 14% higher risk of early death.

New findings from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) show that the US incidence rates for aggressive subtypes of uterine cancer rose rapidly among women aged 30 to 79 years from 2000 to 2015. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, used population data from NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database to evaluate trends in uterine cancer incidence rates for women overall and by race and ethnicity, geographic region, and histologic subtypes. The findings reveal racial disparities, including higher incidence of aggressive subtypes and poorer survival among non-Hispanic black women than among women in other racial/ethnic groups.