The Role of Synthetic Biology in Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Prospects and Challenges.

The long atmospheric residence time of CO creates an urgent need to add atmospheric carbon drawdown to CO regulatory strategies. Synthetic and systems biology (SSB), which enables manipulation of cellular phenotypes, offers a powerful approach to amplifying and adding new possibilities to current land management practices aimed at reducing atmospheric carbon. The participants (in attendance: Christina Agapakis, George Annas, Adam Arkin, George Church, Robert Cook-Deegan, Charles DeLisi, Dan Drell, Sheldon Glashow, Steve Hamburg, Henry Jacoby, Henry Kelly, Mark Kon, Todd Kuiken, Mary Lidstrom, Mike MacCracken, June Medford, Jerry Melillo, Ron Milo, Pilar Ossorio, Ari Patrinos, Keith Paustian, Kristala Jones Prather, Kent Redford, David Resnik, John Reilly, Richard J.

Single cell-based automated quantification of therapy responses of invasive cancer spheroids in organotypic 3D culture.

Organotypic in vitro culture of 3D spheroids in an extracellular matrix represent a promising cancer therapy prediction model for personalized medicine screens due to their controlled experimental conditions and physiological similarities to in vivo conditions. As in tumors in vivo, 3D invasion cultures identify intratumor heterogeneity of growth, invasion and apoptosis induction by cytotoxic therapy. We here combine in vitro 3D spheroid invasion culture with irradiation and automated nucleus-based segmentation for single cell analysis to quantify growth, survival, apoptosis and invasion response during experimental radiation therapy.

Re-Use of Established Drugs for Anti-Metastatic Indications.

Most patients that die from cancer do not die due to the primary tumor but due to the development of metastases. However, there is currently still no drug on the market that specifically addresses and inhibits metastasis formation. This lack was, in the past, largely due to the lack of appropriate screening models, but recent developments have established such models and have provided evidence that tumor cell migration works as a surrogate for metastasis formation.

Anti-metastatics: an overview of drug candidates in current pipelines.

As the number of novel drugs that have entered the market in oncology has slowed in recent years, there has been a dramatic shift towards new therapeutic approaches. The majority of cancer patients die from metastasis formation, which has prompted the pharmaceutical industry to begin to investigate a new class of agents: anti-metastatics. This review provides an overview of the targets, mechanisms of action, and drug substances currently in the pharma pipeline to inhibit tumor cell migration and metastasis formation.