One of the most exciting areas of cancer research now is the development of agents which can target signal transduction pathways that are activated inappropriately in malignant cells. The understanding of the molecular abnormalities which distinguish malignant cells from their normal counterparts has grown tremendously. This volume summarizes the current research on the role that signal transduction pathways play in the pathogenesis of cancer and how this knowledge may be used to develop the next generation of more effective and less toxic anticancer agents. Series Editor comments: "The biologic behavior of both normal and cancer cells is determined by critical signal transduction pathways. This text provides a comprehensive review of the field. Leading investigators discuss key molecules that may prove to be important diagnostic and/or therapeutic targets."

At the moment, there is no dedicated book to summarize the roles, the significance, and potential therapeutic targeting of transcriptional factors from the perspective of signaling cascade, and thus, directly impacting the functionality of transcriptional factors in cancer. In addition, this book will offer a comprehensive basic and clinical science behind the functions of representative core transcriptional factors. These chapters will serve as a treasure for all those who have an interest in the basis, progression, and targeting of human cancer. Each chapter will be intended to provide comprehensive, up-to-date information by the leaders about the physiologic and pathologic roles of TFs in specific representative organ systems of prime importance. The book will consist of chapters that will give biomedical students, under and graduate students, basic sciences and clinical cancer fellows, residents and researchers, and oncology educators will get a thorough summary of the overall subject. The readers will be able to understand the important current information and views on specific TFs and its role in cancer in areas outside their own expertise or experience. A special emphasis will be also placed on the "classic" papers as well as perspectives on future directions for the field.

This book is devoted to innovative medicine, comprising the proceedings of the Uehara Memorial Foundation Symposium 2014. It remains extremely rare for the findings of basic research to be developed into clinical applications, and it takes a long time for the process to be achieved. The task of advancing the development of basic research into clinical reality lies with translational science, yet the field seems to struggle to find a way to move forward. To create innovative medical technology, many steps need to be taken: development and analysis of optimal animal models of human diseases, elucidation of genomic and epidemiological data, and establishment of “proof of concept”. There is also considerable demand for progress in drug research, new surgical procedures, and new clinical devices and equipment. While the original research target may be rare diseases, it is also important to apply those findings more broadly to common diseases. The book covers a wide range of topics and is organized into three complementary parts. The first part is basic research for innovative medicine, the second is translational research for innovative medicine, and the third is new technology for innovative medicine. This book helps to understand innovative medicine and to make progress in its realization.

Edited by two experts working at the pioneering pharmaceutical company and major global player in hormone-derived drugs, this handbook and reference systematically treats the drug development aspects of all human nuclear receptors, including recently characterized receptors such as PPAR, FXR and LXR. Authors from leading pharmaceutical companies around the world present examples and real-life data from their own work.

Acting principally to control patterns of gene expression, nuclear receptors play vital roles during embryonic development and in the regulation of metabolic and reproductive functions in adult life, which proves this superfamily of ligand-activated transcription factors to be a crucial part of biological life. In The Nuclear Receptor Superfamily: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers describe a range of molecular, structural and cell biological techniques currently used to investigate the structure-function of nuclear receptors, together with experimental approaches that may lead to new therapeutic strategies for treating nuclear receptor-associated diseases. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, the chapters in this volume contain brief introductions to the topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, as well as notes from the experts to highlight tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and easy to use, The Nuclear Receptor Superfamily: Methods and Protocols provides beneficial and time-saving guidance for all those undertaking research in this ever-growing field of study.

Heat shock proteins are emerging as important molecules in the development of cancer and as key targets in cancer therapy. These proteins enhance the growth of cancer cells and protect tumors from treatments such as drugs or surgery. However, new drugs have recently been developed particularly those targeting heat shock protein 90. As heat shock protein 90 functions to stabilize many of the oncogenes and growth promoting proteins in cancer cells, such drugs have broad specificity in many types of cancer cell and offer the possibility of evading the development of resistance through point mutation or use of compensatory pathways. Heat shock proteins have a further property that makes them tempting targets in cancer immunotherapy. These proteins have the ability to induce an inflammatory response when released in tumors and to carry tumor antigens to antigen presenting cells. They have thus become important components of anticancer vaccines. Overall, heat shock proteins are important new targets in molecular cancer therapy and can be approached in a number of contrasting approaches to therapy.

Biological processes are driven by complex systems of functionally interacting signaling molecules. Thus, understanding signaling molecules is essential to explain normal or pathological biological phenomena. A large body of clinical and experimental data has been accumulated over these years, albeit in fragmented state. Hence, systems biological approaches concomitant with the understanding of each molecule are ideal to delineate signaling networks/pathways involved in the biologically important processes. The control of these signaling pathways will enrich our healthier life. Currently, there are more than 30,000 genes in human genome. However, not all the proteins encoded by these genes work equally in order to maintain homeostasis. Understanding the important signaling molecules as completely as possible will significantly improve our research-based teaching and scientific capabilities. This encyclopedia presents 350 biologically important signaling molecules and the content is built on the core concepts of their functions along with early findings written by some of the world’s foremost experts. The molecules are described by recognized leaders in each molecule. The interactions of these single molecules in signal transduction networks will also be explored. This encyclopedia marks a new era in overview of current cellular signaling molecules for the specialist and the interested non-specialist alike During past years, there were multiple databases to gather this information briefly and very partially. Amidst the excitement of these findings, one of the great scientific tasks of the coming century is to bring all the useful information into a place. Such an approach is arduous but at the end will infuse the lacunas and considerably be a streamline in the understanding of vibrant signaling networks. Based on this easy-approach, we can build up more complicated biological systems.

This book provides protocols to quantify metabolism, to identify metabolic crosstalk, and to setup and develop tools and models to gain insight into metabolic signaling using experimental and computational approaches. Chapters detail protocols to quantify metabolism, identify metabolic crosstalk, and develop tools and models to gain a systems-level insight into metabolic signaling. 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. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Metabolic Signaling: Methods and Protocols aims to provide researchers with methods to study, perturb, and functionally interpret metabolism and metabolic signaling from the sub-cellular to the whole-body level.

Breast Cancer - From Biology to Medicine thoroughly examines breast cancer from basic definitions, to cellular and molecular biology, to diagnosis and treatment. This book also has some additional focus on preclinical and clinical results in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The book begins with introduction on epidemiology and pathophysiology of breast cancer in Section 1. In Section 2, the subsequent chapters introduce molecular and cellular biology of breast cancer with some particular signaling pathways, the gene expression, as well as the gene methylation and genomic imprinting, especially the existence of breast cancer stem cells. In Section 3, some new diagnostic methods and updated therapies from surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and some complementary therapies are discussed. This book provides a succinct yet comprehensive overview of breast cancer for advanced students, graduate students, and researchers as well as those working with breast cancer in a clinical setting.

This volume examines in detail the role of chronic inflammatory processes in the development of several types of cancer. Leading experts describe the latest results of molecular and cellular research on infection, cancer-related inflammation and tumorigenesis. Further, the clinical significance of these findings in preventing cancer progression and approaches to treating the diseases are discussed. Individual chapters cover cancer of the lung, colon, breast, brain, head and neck, pancreas, prostate, bladder, kidney, liver, cervix and skin as well as gastric cancer, sarcoma, lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma.