Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 17, Issue 1, 2016

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is characterized as a heterogeneous disease where the patients are sub grouped according to several classification systems and mutational analyses. Diagnosis of AML is based on identification of the specific myeloid cell initiating the disease, quantification of immature blasts in bone marrow and peripheral blood, as well as detection of mutations and translocations. The heterogeneity of AML is Read More

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is characterized by extensive clinical and biological heterogeneity. Despite vast advances in understanding the molecular pathology in AML during the last two decades few new AML therapeutics have been approved by the European Medicines Agency. Since 2005 only the epigenetic modulators decitabine and azacytidine, as well as histamine (plus interleukin- 2) have been approved against A Read More

Chemotherapy for AML is hampered by severe side-effects and failure to eliminate all the blasts that eventually leads to relapse. The use of nanosized particulate drug carriers such as liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles has the potential to improve AML therapy by delivering more of the drug to the disease site, thereby reducing toxicity. For example, encapsulation in liposomes reduces the cardiotoxicity of anthracycli Read More

Despite the tremendous progress made in the comprehension of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) over the last 30 years most patients die from their disease. Our understanding of AML has relied on an intensive in-vitro research approach, based on AML cell lines as well as primary AML patient cells. However, experimental insight into the early events of AML leukemogenesis before they become clinically observable is not possibl Read More

The identification of protein biomarkers for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that could find applications in AML diagnosis and prognosis, treatment and the selection for bone marrow transplant requires substantial comparative analyses of the proteomes from AML patients. In the past years, several studies have suggested some biomarkers for AML diagnosis or AML classification using methods for sample preparation with low Read More

Nature is an important source for anti-cancer therapeutics, and nearly half of the currently marketed cancer drugs are derived from natural products. Most of the therapeutic natural products are derived from terrestrial sources, such as paclitaxel, vincristine, epothilones, doxorubicin, etoposide and camptothecin. However, the oceans have received growing interest as a source for new useful bioactive compounds, and Read More

Cyanobacteria are an inspiring source of bioactive secondary metabolites. These bioactive agents are a diverse group of compounds which are varying in their bioactive targets, the mechanisms of action, and chemical structures. Cyanobacteria from various environments, especially marine benthic cyanobacteria, are found to be rich sources for the search for novel bioactive compounds. Several compounds with anticancer Read More

Even though malnutrition is associated with an adverse prognosis after allogeneic stem cell transplantation, few studies have addressed the question what is the optimal nutritional support for these patients. There is a general agreement that the body weight, body mass index and nutritional intake can be used to guide the post-transplant nutritional support; enteral nutrition may then be tried but most patients will r Read More

Modern analytical techniques provide an unprecedented insight to biomedical samples, allowing an in depth characterization of cells or body fluids, to the level of genes, transcripts, peptides, proteins, metabolites, or metallic ions. The fine grained picture provided by such approaches holds the promise for a better understanding of complex pathologies, and consequently the personalization of diagnosis, prognosis and treatment Read More