New findings by a team of researchers from National Yang Ming University and Taipei Veterans General Hospital have shed light on drug resistance in colorectal cancer.
Colorectal cancer is the most common type of the disease in the nation, with an average of more than 13,000 people diagnosed with that form of cancer every year.
The condition is also the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the nation, claiming more than 4,000 lives a year.
Patients with stage IV colorectal cancer are treated with targeted therapies, of which epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeting therapy is the main strategy.
Responsiveness to the therapy is assessed by screening for a mutated KRAS gene, the presence of which is indicative of resistance to anti-EGFR therapy since it is estimated that more than half of all colorectal cancers manifest in patients whose KRAS gene contains no mutation.
However, about 30 to 40 percent of those who test negative for KRAS mutations and receive EGFR-targeting therapy still go on to develop resistance to the drugs, the research team said.
The researchers said that past studies have shown that malignant colorectal cancer stem cells can exacerbate cancerous tumor growth.
In their research, the team discovered that it is the transcription factor “Snail” in colorectal cancer stem cells, which regulates miroRNA-146a, that directs the tumor-growth-promoting symmetrical cell division of the stem cells. This in turn leads to metastasis and resistance to EGFR inhibitors, the team said.
“If we can repress [the activity of] microRNA-146, the cancer can also be repressed,” said Wang Hsei-wei (王學偉), a professor of microbiology and immunology at National Yang Ming University and a co-author of the study.
“Detecting microRNA can also help determine how serious the cancer and drug resistance afflicting a patient are,” Wang said.
The study’s results were published in leading scientific journal Nature Cell Biology this month.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching