Cancer

big HealthCare challenge.

a broad group of various diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the body through the lymphatic system or bloodstream. Not all tumors are cancerous. Benign tumors do not grow uncontrollably, do not invade neighboring tissues, and do not spread throughout the body. There are over 200 different known cancers that afflict humans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer

Mar'2012: According to scientists at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and giant biotechnology firm Amgen, almost 90 percent of early stage cancer research geared toward finding improved treatments is wrong. The allegations appear in the prestigious journal Nature. Surgical oncologist Lee M. Ellis of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and C. Glenn Begley, the former head of cancer research at Amgen, describe the efforts of scientists at Amgen (based in Thousand Oaks, California) to replicate the results of 53 landmark research papers on cancer which had been cited by others as significant progress. All of the papers were “pre-clinical,” meaning they were studies involving cells in petri dishes or rodents. Of the conclusions drawn by these research papers, the scientists were able to replicate 11 percent. For scientific purposes, the inability to replicate a study reliably often indicates that the study is wrong.

Apr'2012: As many as 20 percent of cancer cell lines included in repositories for use by researchers may be improperly identified, a U.S. researcher said. The National Center for Biotechnology Information is trying to clean up the mess and establish new standards, but the NIH, for instance, still does not require authentification of cell lines when it doles out grant money.