Canadian Health Care Does It Again: Breakthrough in Breast Cancer

By GottaLaff

I am absolutely thrilled to post this:

Researchers with the B.C. Cancer Agency have become the first-ever to decode the DNA of breast cancer cells, and have discovered that gene mutations in those tumours shift as the disease spreads.

These findings were presented in the Nature journal, and chart the genetic mutations that occurred in the 3 billion letters of the DNA sequence from an estrogen-receptor-alpha-positive breast tumour. It has been said that this discovery will provide unprecedented understanding about how breast cancer progresses.

Chair of breast cancer research at the BC Cancer Agency and Canada research chair in molecular oncology, Dr. Samuel Aparicio said of the results:

"I never thought I would see it in my lifetime"

Damn those amazing Canadians and their health care strides! Damn them! *Wink*

New, more effective flu vaccine on the horizon

By GottaLaff

This would be a very welcome, very major breakthrough:

In a discovery that could radically change how the world fights flu, researchers have engineered antibodies that protect against many strains of influenza, including even the 1918 Spanish flu and the H5N1 bird flu.

The discovery, experts said, could lead to the development of a flu vaccine that would not have to be changed yearly. And the antibodies already developed can be injected as a treatment, targeting the virus in ways that drugs like Tamiflu do not. Clinical trials to prove they are safe in humans could begin within three years, a researcher estimated.

More like this, please.