The first volume of a "book of cancer knowledge" has been published, which scientists say will speed up the search for new cancer drugs.

The "encyclopaedia" details how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents.

UK, US and European researchers say the data, published in Nature, is a step towards tailoring cancer medicine to a patient's genetic profile.

A cancer charity said the work would help in testing new cancer drugs.

Cancer cells grown in the laboratory are an essential tool in cancer research.

Hundreds of different cell lines exist, allowing scientists to study the effect of new cancer drugs on the human body.

Now, a team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge and various cancer institutes around the world have released two papers cataloguing data on hundreds of cancer cell lines.

The UK team, working with colleagues in the US, Paris and Switzerland, screened more than 600 cancer cell lines with 130 drugs, identifying genetic signatures linked with drug sensitivity.

Already clues are emerging that could be of benefit to patients, including the discovery that a rare bone cancer in children (Ewing's sarcoma) appears to be vulnerable to certain drugs.
Personalised medicine

Dr Mathew Garnett of the Sanger Institute is lead researcher on one of the two papers published in the journal Nature.

He told "It's bringing together two very large and very powerful data sets and asking which cell line is the most sensitive and what is behind that sensitivity.

"This is the largest study of its kind linking drug response with genetic markers. You need these very large studies to identify small subsets of cells that are sensitive to drugs."

Dr Levi Garraway of The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, US, is a senior member of the research team behind the second paper, which profiled 24 drugs across nearly 500 cell lines.

He told "Developing this large cell-line resource with all the associated genetic details is another piece in the pie to get us to our goal of personalised cancer medicine.

"We're trying to get smarter about understanding what the right drug is using the genetic information in each tumour. This is a stepping stone along the way."

The next step is use the information to help decide on tailored treatments for cancer patients.

This would involve getting a genetic "fingerprint" of their tumour, which could be matched to information in the database.

Some cancer drugs are already available for individuals with a certain genetic makeup.

The best known is Herceptin, a breast cancer drug that works in patients with an overactive HER2 gene.

Professor Charles Swanton, based at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, said the papers were "an invaluable resource" that provided "extremely useful intelligence" for cancer researchers.

He added: "This new resource will help speed up cancer research and may well begin to guide further developments in personalised cancer medicine."

Sitting for 11 hours or more in everyday life increases our chances of dying within three years, irrespective of whether we are physically active or not, an Australian study has found.

According to the study by University of Sydney, the people who remained sedentary for half day had a 40 percent increased risk, even when physical activity and weight was taken into account, the Daily Mail reported.


"These results have important public health implications. That morning walk or trip to the gym is still necessary but it`s also important to avoid prolonged sitting," according to study leader Hidde van der Ploeg.

"Our results suggest the time people spend sitting at home, work and in traffic should be reduced by standing or walking more."

The results showed physical activity was still beneficial -- inactive people who sat the most had double the risk of dying within three years than the active people who sat least.

Among the physically inactive group, those who sat the most had nearly one-third higher chance of dying than those who sat least.

The research was commissioned by the Cardiovascular Research Network and supported by the National Heart Foundation Australia`s NSW Division.

Heart Foundation CEO Tony Thirlwell said being inactive was a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which is responsible for over 17 million deaths a year worldwide.

"Watching TV, using computers and electronic games can involve sitting for long periods and have become a big part of leisure time," he said.

"But we know that people who spend less time on these things have better health than those who spend too much time on them."

Hyderabad based Srikon Healthcare Services Limited, a home based medical service provider for family members, launched its healthcare service based on the concept of a family physician in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Srikon Healthcare has in house doctors, who will be individually assigned for specific patients. Families can avail the service with an annual subscription package of Rs 8,000 Rs 10,000.
"A family physician is the one who knows an individual's health history, and reduces confusion during acute medical emergencies. Healing is not just about treatment but also human attachments, which is why family doctors were preferred a few decades ago. Today, doctors do not have adequate time for each patient. So, the family physician concept is again gaining steam," Srikon's chairman Subrahmanyam Nanduri told mediapersons here.

According to a recent study done by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, around 50 per cent of the employees in India are under stress, 20 per cent suffer from depression and 30 per cent have problems such as addictions and marital discord. India is expected to have the largest cardiovascular disease burden in the world by 2020 between the age group of 30 and 69 years, reflecting its loss in terms of losing potentially productive years.

"Lifestyle diseases, including obesity, hypertension, diabetes and heart attacks, are growing and even affecting youngsters at an early age. In this case, a family doctor will play an important role," he said.

The smell of food can affect how much of it you eat, according to research carried out in the Netherlands.

Published in BioMed Central's open access journal Flavour, launched today, the findings show that strong aromas lead to smaller bite sizes and suggests that aroma may be used as a means to control portion size.

Bite size depends on the familiarly and texture of food. Smaller bite sizes are taken for foods which need more chewing and smaller bite sizes are often linked to a sensation of feeling fuller sooner.

The aroma experience of food is linked to its constituents and texture, but also to bite size. Smaller bites sizes are linked towards a lower flavour release which may explain why we take smaller bites of unfamiliar or disliked foods.

In order to separate the effect of aroma on bite size from other food-related sensations researchers from the Netherlands developed a system where a custard-like dessert was eaten while different scents were simultaneously presented directly to the participants nose.

The results showed that the stronger the smell the smaller the bite. Dr Rene A de Wijk, who led the study, explained, 'Our human test subjects were able to control how much dessert was fed to them by pushing a button.
Bite size was associated with the aroma presented for that bite and also for subsequent bites (especially for the second to last bite).

'Perhaps, in keeping with the idea that smaller bites are associated with lower flavour sensations from the food and that, there is an unconscious feedback loop using bite size to regulate the amount of flavour experienced.'

This study suggests that manipulating the odour of food could result in a 5-10 per cent decrease in intake per bite.

Combining aroma control with portion control could fool the body into thinking it was full with a smaller amount of food and aid weight loss.

BioMed Central's open access journal Flavour, launched today is a peer-reviewed, open access, online journal that publishes interdisciplinary articles on flavour, its generation, perception, and influence on behaviour and nutrition.

Flavour aims to understand the psychophysical, psychological and chemical aspects of flavour, which include not only taste and aroma, but also chemesthesis, texture, and all the senses.

One way to achieve fitness is by exercising, but long sedentary periods can also be risky, healthwise, in spite of physical activity.

When the muscles are inactive for long periods, the fat metabolism, for example, can change into being disadvantageous to one's health, says a Finnish study.

Because of this, it is extremely important to pay attention to the amount of exercise and to reduce the amount of sitting, the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports reported.

Does, for example, going to the gym reduce the time spent on sedentary activities, or should one also find something else to reduce it?

TFinni, P Haakana, AJ Pesola and T. Pullinen from the University of Jyvaskyla's biology department, compared a group of Finnish men and women, adults and the aged, over two days, according to a statement of Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland) via AlphaGalileo.

On the first day, they performed some form of physical activity and on the second none at all. Although 30 to 150 minutes of exercise increased energy consumption, it did not decrease muscle inactivity that is, the time spent sitting down.

Results showed that the muscles are inactive about 70% of the day, irrespective of whether the day included any fitness training.