Stem cell research is one of the fascinating areas of contemporary biology, but, as with many expanding fields of scientific inquiry, research on stem cells raises scientific questions as rapidly as it generates discoveries. Research on stem cell treatment continues to advance knowledge about how an organism develops from a single cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. The most important potential application of human stem cells is the generation of cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies, especially oncology. The Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Sumatera Utara, collaborated with the center of excellence and innovation (Pusat Unggulan Inovasi /PUI). The Stem Cell center of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) organized an International Conference. The International Stem Cell and Oncology Conference (ISCOC) 2017 was a comprehensive academic conference in the field of stem cell and oncology research and also tropical medicine and related scientific topics. We expect Stem Cell Oncology will benefit academics and practitioners in the field of health sciences in Indonesia. This is an Open Access ebook, and can be found on www.taylorfrancis.com.

Cancer Vaccines: Methods and Protocols explores the manipulation and modification of immune cells, the manipulation and modification of tumor cells as well as the manipulation of immune/tumor interactions and various delivery mechanisms, with the overall end goal of evoking a tumor-specific response and overcoming the immuno-evasive mechanisms employed by the tumor cells. This detailed volume also covers the subject of cancer vaccines in a more global sense with its section on the advances, challenges, and future of cancer vaccines. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Comprehensive and authoritative, Cancer Vaccines: Methods and Protocols aims to help guide researchers toward developing further generations of cancer vaccines that are both safe and efficacious, with the hope that cancer vaccines will be the standard of care in the very near future.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Methods and Protocols outlines the research methods applied in the laboratories and clinics of those scientists and cli- cians interested in the understanding and clinical management of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Part I, The Clinical Problem, has been contributed by two leading cli- cal groups who have identified and addressed problem areas related to the management of HCC patients. Various treatment modalities are discussed and emphasis is placed on the limitations they experienced. Part II, HCC Carcinogenesis, reviews the main etiological factors related to hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Part III, Molecular and Biological Characteristics, provides insight into the molecular changes associated with HCC, including tumor-suppressor genes, oncogenes, adhesion molecules, matrix metalloproteinase, and novel genes and markers. Part IV, HCC Gene Therapy, addresses gene therapy approaches to treating hepatocellular carcinoma. It includes the use of various vectors, such as lipids, viruses such as adenoviruses and baculoviruses, and virus detection using el- tron microscopy assessment. The use of adenovirus with specific promotors, such as AFP, is also included. Preclinical and clinical data on the killing of cancer cells using tumor-suppressor genes, antisense to growth factors, immunogene therapy, or virus-directed enzyme prodrug therapy are addressed.

An in depth review of our latest understanding of the molecular events that regulate cell death and those molecules that provide targets for developing agonists or antagonists to modulate death signaling for therapeutic purposes. The authors focus on the extrinsic system of death receptors, their regulation and function, and their abnormalities in cancer. Topics of particular interest include resistance to apoptosis, TRAIL signaling, death receptors in embryonic development, mechanisms of caspase activation, and death receptor mutations in cancer. Additional chapters address death signaling in melanoma, synthetic retinoids and death receptors, the role of p53 in death receptor regulation, immune suppression of cancer, and combination therapy with death ligands.

Melanoma is one of the most types of cancer. When melanoma is detected at an early stage, treatment is highly successful, but outcomes can be poor when the disease is advanced. There has been significant progress in our understanding of the molecular biology, genetics, and immunology of melanoma over the past decade. This has been accompanied by rapid advances in therapeutic strategies for patients with melanoma. This book provides the clinician and the researcher with a broad understanding of the molecular and cellular pathogenesis of melanoma, explores the clinical characteristics and criteria for clinical and pathological staging of the disease, and provides an overview of current and evolving treatment strategies in the adjuvant, metastatic, and preventive settings. The treatment of special populations and rare variants of melanoma that often present particular clinical challenges is also covered. Authored by international experts in melanoma biology and clinical management, this volume concisely explains how to diagnose, treat, and prevent melanoma while reviewing advances in basic science and providing an overview of innovative approaches still under development.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in females that accounts for highest cancer specific deaths worldwide. In the last few decades research has proven that breast cancer can be treated if diagnosed at early stages and proper therapeutic strategy is adopted. Omics-based recent approaches have unveiled the molecular mechanism behind the breast tumorigenesis and aid in identification of next-generation molecular markers for early diagnosis, prognosis, and even the effective targeted therapy. Significant development has taken place in the field of omics in breast cancer in the last decade. The most promising omics approaches and their outcomes in breast cancer have been presented in this book for the first time. The book covers omics technologies and budding fields such as breast cancer miRNA, lipidomics, epigenomics, proteomics, nutrigenomics, stem cell, pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine, and many more along with conventional topics such as breast cancer management etc. It is a research-based reference book useful for clinician-scientists, researchers, geneticists and health care industries involved in various aspects of breast cancer. The book will also be useful for students of biomedicine, pathology, and pharmacy.

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal malignancy of the female reproductive system and is also the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women. Sharing common characteristics of cancer, ovarian malignancy possess several clinical and biological particularities In "Ovarian Cancer: Methods and Protocols," expert researchers in the field provide methods that have been created or adapted to study various aspects of ovarian cancer. These methods and techniques are applicable to study genetic alterations present in ovarian cancer, structural and metabolic features of ovarian cancer cells, include in vitro and in vivo models that recapitulate ovarian cancer development and progression, and describe ovarian cancer-oriented drug delivery approaches. Methodological chapters are grouped into seven thematic parts, any of them is introduced by short subject review. Written in the highly successful "Methods in Molecular Biology" series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

Authoritative and practical, " Ovarian Cancer: Methods and Protocols" seeks to aid scientist to optimize study designs, to correctly select the most applicable methods, and to produce interesting and novel results."

The hematopoietic system plays roles that are crucial for survival of the host: delivery of oxygen to tissues, arrest of accidental blood leaking from blood vessels, and fending off of invading microbes by humoral, cell-mediated, and phagocytic immunity. The activity of the hematopoietic system is staggering: daily, a normal adult produces approximately 2.5 billion erythrocytes, 2.5 billion platelets, and 1 billion granulocytes per kilogram of body weight. This production is adjusted in a timely fashion to changes in actual needs and can vary from nearly none to many times the normal rate depending on needs which vary from day to day, or even minute to minute. In response to a variety of stimuli, the cellular components of the blood are promptly increased or decreased in production to maintain appropriate numbers to optimally protect the host from hypoxia, infection, and hemorrhage. How does this all happen and happen without over or under responding? There has been extraordinary growth in our understanding ofhematopoiesis over the last two decades. Occupying center stage is the pluripotent stern cell and its progeny. Hematopoietic stern cells have been characterized by their capacity for self renewal and their ability to proliferate and differentiate along multiple lineages. Few in number, the stern cell gives rise to all circulating neutrophils, erythrocytes, lymphoid cells, and platelets. In hematopoietic transplantation, the stern cell is capable of restoring long-term hematopoiesis in a lethally irradiated host.

If there is one aspect of current cancer research that represents a major ch- lenge in both novice and experienced researchers, it is the rapid advance in our understanding of the disease. Researchers can be required to switch from analysis of gene expression to kinetics of protein activation, from genetic studies to the analysis of protein funtion. Cancers are highly complex disease systems and researchers aiming to understand the functioning of cancer systems require access to a wide range of laboratory techiques from a broad range of research disciplines. Increasingly, however, published methods are incomplete or refer back to a series of previous publications each containing only a small part of the complete pro- col. The aim of Ovarian Cancer: Methods and Protocols is to provide for ovarian cancer researchers in the first instance, a laboratory handbook that will facilitate research into cancer systems by providing a series of expert protocols, with proven efficacy, across a broad range of technical expertise. Thus, there are sections on tumor genetics and cellular signal transduction, as well as sections on apoptosis and RNA analysis. The value of Ovarian Cancer: Methods and Protocols to the ovarian cancer researcher will, I trust, be considerably enhanced by (1) the provision of a series of overviews relating to the biology, diagnosis, and treatment of this important neoplasm, and (2) the provision of a series of technical overviews introducing each part that provides an expert review of the applications and pitfalls of the various techniques included.

TLR4 is one of the most important innate immunity receptors, its function mainly consisting in the activation of inflammatory pathways in response to stimulation by Pathogen-Associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs) and Damage Associated Molecular Pattern molecules (DAMPs). This volume critically reviews the different types of TLR4 activators and inhibitors, discusses the role of molecular aggregates in agonism/antagonism as well as the pivotal role of the CD14 receptor in the modulation of TLR4 signal and the molecular details and actors of the intracellular cascade. The book presents the role of TLR4 in several pathologies, such as sepsis and septic shock caused by receptor activation by gram-negative bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), in neurodegenerative and neurological diseases such as Parkinson and Alzheimer's diseases, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). It reviews the role of TLR4 in neural stem cell-mediated neurogenesis and neuroinflammation and in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Cerebral Organoids and discusses the emerging role of micro-RNA (miRNA) regulation by TLR4.

This thesis offers an accessible guide to biomedical phase-contrast imaging with over 20 radiographic illustrations. It focuses on research to improve radiography, and particularly mammography applications, by using a novel X-ray imaging modality that exploits the wave-nature of X-rays, rather than just their absorption in tissue. Further, it explores a broad range of potential applications - from the assessment of breast cancer and the evaluation of microcalcification clusters, to the examination of renal stones. X-ray imaging is an indispensable tool in modern medical diagnostics, and ranges from simple radiography applications to advanced CT imaging protocols. This novel phase-contrast approach has the potential to deliver significantly improved diagnostic information, also and especially in cases where mammography is used for screening purposes. The thesis is based on several studies conducted by the author - working in close interdisciplinary cooperation with medical doctors at two university clinics in Munich - and successfully demonstrates this diagnostic potential in pre-clinical experiments.

This volume reviews the current research focused on the functional importance of unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling in the context of health and disease. The chapters present cutting-edge work describing the diverse functions of UPR signaling critical for regulating cellular and organismal physiology under physiologic and pathologic conditions. Written by internationally respected scientists, this volume is designed to provide a broad view of the diverse functional importance of UPR, and as such appeals to clinicians and academic researchers alike.

In 1971, J. Folkman published in the New England Journal of Medicine a hypothesis that tumor growth is angiogenesis-dependent. Folkman introduced the concept that tumors probably secrete diffusible molecules that could stimulate the growth of new blood vessels toward the tumor and that the resulting tumor neovascularization could conceivably be prevented or interrupted by angiogenesis inhibitors. Solid and haematological tumors consist of an avascular and a subsequent vascular phase. Assuming that this depends on the release of angiogenic factors, acquisition of angiogenic capability can be seen as an expression of progression from neoplastic transformation to tumor growth and metastasis.

Beginning in the 1980 s, the biopharmaceutical industry began exploiting the field of antiangiogenesis for creating new therapeutic compounds for modulating new blood vessels in tumor growth. In 2004, Avastin (Bevacizumab), a humanized anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody, was the first angiogenesis inhibitor approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of colorectal cancer. At present, it has been estimated that over 20,000 cancer patients worldwide have received experimental form of antiangiogenic therapy.

This book offers a historical account of the relevant literature. It also emphasizes the crucial and paradigmatic role of angiogenesis as a biological process and the significance of antiangiogenic approach for the treatment of tumors."

Creating clinical guidelines is a modern trend. Published studies pertaining to a given theme are collected, their credibility evaluated, and then treatment options in the form of evidence-based guidelines are offered. There are a number of guidelines for the treatment of thyroid tumors that have established positions in clinical practice in North America and in Western European countries. In Japan, however, where radioisotope facilities are of limited availability, treatment plans for differentiated thyroid cancer differ considerably from those of America and Europe, and the associated clinical guidelines need modification before they can be adopted. In addition, although thyroid tumor is a common disease in endocrine practice, its management can differ even among specialists. Thus, a Japanese clinical guideline for the treatment of thyroid tumor was desired by many clinicians. As a combination of evidence-based and consensus-based guidelines for the treatment of thyroid tumor, this book offers alternatives to conventional approaches in the West. Ultimately, the authors hope the guideline will lead to the best possible treatment for patients all over the world in the not-distant future.

Nuclear receptors are ligand activated transcription factors that control numerous biological functions. Consequently, altering activity of these receptors is proposed, and indeed documented, to affect many physiological and pathological conditions in experimental animals and humans. Thus, nuclear receptors have become a major target in the effort to treat numerous diseases.This book will shed light on and emphasize intricate processes involved in designing as well as discovering physiological and pharmacological modulators of these important proteins. World-renowned scientists will share with the reader their professional expertise and extensive experience acquired through decades working with nuclear receptors. Chapters address the various means and consequences of modulating nuclear receptor activity will be presented and discussed. These modulators cover a wide span of moieties ranging from synthetic chemicals to natural products. In addition, the classification of these chemicals ranges from pan agonists to selective agonists and inverse agonists to antagonists. They also include proteolytic means to obliterate the receptor in the event that modulating its activity through canonical pharmacological agents becomes less effective and/or less desirable due to anticipated or experienced toxicities. Modulation of receptor activity may also take place in the absence of a ligand or through manipulating the structure of the receptor itself by controlling posttranslational events.

Technical and Biological Components of Marrow Transplantation presents up to date information on the scientific and technological advances that will extend and improve the clinical application of bone marrow transplantation. The book includes the latest information on chronic myeloid leukemia and thalassemia; advances in supportive care: cytokines and progenitor expansion; and cord stem cell technology. Soon more of patients will receive marrow transplants as part of the therapy for solid tumors and metabolic disease than for the treatment of hematologic disease. The contributors to this volume describe some of these applications, hinting at yet further, exciting possibilities.

A deeply moving story about the courage of a man diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma and his wife's realization that God's love was the one thing she could count on.

Since their first description in 1875, Merkel cells have remained an elusive cell type. Their origin as well as their classification as mechanoreceptors have been a matter of controversy and intense discussion. The peptidergic granules in these cells are suggestive of neuroendocrine functions, but their discovery has raised additional questions regarding Merkel cell function. Essential aspects of structure, development and function of normal Merkel cells and Merkel cell carcinoma are presented in short chapters, providing concise and up-to date information on this fascinating cell type.

Applications of Biotechnology in Oncology collects key writings by Kewal K. Jain on the most important contributions of biotechnology to cancer research, particularly to the molecular diagnosis of cancer and drug delivery in cancer for personalized management of patients. Basics of various "omics" technologies and their application in oncology are described as oncogenomics and oncoproteomics. This detailed volume also explores molecular diagnostics, nanobiotechnology, cell and gene therapies, as well as personalized oncology. With approximately one thousand selected references from recent literature on this topic and numerous tables and figures, Applications of Biotechnology in Oncology serves as an ideal reference for oncologists, scientists involved in research on cancer biology, and physicians in various specialties who deal with cancer.

This volume explores the still undiscovered secrets of tumor immunology and cancer immunology by discussing the methods and techniques that world-renowned experts in the field use in their laboratories. This book provides a better understanding of the rules governing tumor and cancer immunology, and discusses innovations in the technology of the immunological "smart bullets" (monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, tumor-reactive T cells) used to specifically target cancer cells. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Thorough and cutting-edge, Tumor Immunology: Methods and Protocols contains a wide breadth of subject coverage that any scientist, clinician, or industry professional interested in this field will find valuable.

Endocrine Neoplasia is a comprehensive, updated, and clearly-written text covering the diseases for which endocrine surgical expertise is often needed. We look towards advances in the science and the art of endocrine surgery to continuously improve outcomes for our patients. The goal of this text was to provide a detailed description of both the underlying science of disease as well as the art of clinical management.

The book is divided into five sections addressing neoplasms of the thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal gland, neuroendocrine pancreas, and multiple endocrine neoplasia. Experts from the United States, Canada, and Australia have contributed chapters addressing both the biology of endocrine tumors and the clinical management of disease. Recent discoveries regarding the genetic underpinnings of disease are highlighted. Updated consensus guidelines were used for clinical recommendations. The management of complex and often confusing clinical problems is discussed in detail.

Leading transplant physicians critically review and interpret twenty-one key clinical challenges in bone marrow/hematopoietic cell transplantation, and offer their best personal recommendations for treatment. Topics range from transplant strategies to complications of bone marrow transplantation, including a discussion of the indications, benefits, and the risks for a variety of leukemias, lymphomas, and solid tumors. The authors debate such contentious issues as the appropriateness of transplants in older patients, how many stem cells are sufficient for engraftment, and the pros and cons of umbilical cord blood transplantation. Up-to-date and clinically focused, Current Controversies in Bone Marrow Transplantation offers clinical oncologists, hematology/oncology fellows in training, and residents in internal medicine today's best ready reference and management guide for all their critical oncologic problems arising from the use of bone marrow/stem cell transplantation.

This book describes important developments and emerging trends in experimental and clinical cancer gene therapy. It reflects the tremendous advances made over recent years with respect to immunogenes, suicide genes and gene correction therapies, as well as in gene suppression and miRNA therapies. Many of the described strategies focus on the generation of more efficient and specific means of attack at known and novel cellular targets associated with tumor development and progression. The book also details parallel improvements in vector design, vector delivery, and therapeutic efficacy. It offers readers a stimulating, broad overview of advances in the field, linking experimental strategies to their clinical applications.

This volume provides an interdisciplinary perspective of applying Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology to cancer research. It aims to systematically introduce the concept of NGS, a variety of NGS platforms and their practical implications in cancer biology.This unique and comprehensive text will integrate the unprecedented NGS technology into various cancer research projects as opposed to most books which offer a detailed description of the technology. This volume will present true experimental results with concrete data processing pipelines, discuss the bottleneck of each platform for real project in cancer research. In additional, single cancer cell sequencing as the proof of concept will be introduced in this book, along with cutting-edge information provided will help the intended audience to develop a comprehensive understanding of the NGS technology and practical whole genome sequencing data analysis and rapidly translate into their own research, specifically in the field of cancer biology.