MRV Research

Nodality, Inc., an innovative biotechnology company advancing discovery, development and use of transformative therapies by revealing functional systems biology, announced today promising data utilizing the company’s proprietary Single Cell Network Profiling ( SCNP ) technology in metastatic melanoma. Nodality’s SCNP technology reveals functional biology underlying the most important and intractable diseases, providing critical insights to help guide the discovery and development of next-generation therapeutic agents.

Researchers at Oregon State University have identified a specific biochemical process that can cause normal and healthy skin cells to transform into cancerous melanoma cells, which should help predict melanoma vulnerability and could also lead to future therapies.

More than 70,000 cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, develop in the United States every year.

A person’s risk of developing melanoma increases following prolonged exposure to UV radiation, something we should all consider with Memorial Day weekend and beach season less than a week away. Australian dermatologists are now telling patients to get all bumps, pimples, and moles checked by their doctors to be sure they have not developed nodular melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer that grows at four times the rate of other melanomas.

A substance that comes from pine bark is a potential source for a new treatment of melanoma, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

Current melanoma drugs targeting single proteins can initially be effective, but resistance develops relatively quickly and the disease recurs. In those instances, resistance usually develops when the cancer cell’s circuitry bypasses the protein that the drug acts on, or when the cell uses other pathways to avoid the point on which the drug acts.