Blocking an enzyme can prevent can cells spreading
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Scientists at the UK’s Institute of Cancer Research have prevented breast cancer spreading to other organs in mice by blocking a chemical.
In their experiments, they showed that blocking the enzyme LOXL2 prevented metastasis.
They said their findings, published in Cancer Research, provided a “fantastic drug target” and were “highly likely” to be used in a clinical setting.
Cancer charities say the research shows great promise.
The authors of the report say 90% of cancer deaths are due to tumours migrating around the body.
When they looked at patients with breast cancer, they showed that high levels of the enzyme LOXL2 were linked with cancer spread and poor survival rates.
They also showed that LOXL2 was important in the early stages of cancer spread. It helps cancerous cells escape from the breast tissue and get into the bloodstream.
“This laboratory research shows great promise and we look forward to seeing how it translates into patients”
Arlene Wilkie Breast Cancer Campaign
In their studies on mice, they used chemicals and antibodies to block the activity of LOXL2. This stopped breast cancer spreading to other tissues.
Dr Janine Erler, team leader at the Institute of Cancer Research, said: “LOXL2 is a fantastic drug target, it’s highly likely to be used in a clinical setting.”
She said the findings were not just important for drug development, but also for developing a test which can predict the likelihood of cancer spreading and as a result, patient outcomes.
Arlene Wilkie, Director of Research and Policy at Breast Cancer Campaign, which funded the study with the ICR and Cancer Research UK, said: “Dr Erler’s results are very exciting, as although currently we can treat breast cancer that has spread, we cannot cure it.
“By using LOX2 to predict whose cancer will spread and drugs to block the enzyme to stop this from happening, many more lives could be saved. This laboratory research shows great promise and we look forward to seeing how it translates into patients.”
Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Cancer spread is an important problem in breast and other cancers, and scientists are searching to find new ways to stop cancer spread and save many more lives.
“The team have shown that targeting the molecule LOXL2, which plays a key role in spread, could offer new approaches to tackle this problem.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
It is estimated that about half of working age population has low numeracy skills
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Being bad at maths must no longer be seen as a “badge of honour” if poor numeracy skills among England’s adults are to be tackled, campaigners say.
The National Institute of Continuing Education is calling for a cultural shift in the nation’s attitude to maths and a change in the way it is taught.
It also says adult maths skills campaigns have done little for those with the lowest ability.
The government said tackling poor basic skills was a top priority.
Research has shown that those with poor maths skills are far more likely to be out of work, or to be stuck in low-paid jobs.
Carol Taylor, director of operations at NIACE said the UK had a “huge numeracy problem” but many people saw being bad at maths as a “badge of honour”.
She said the problem was, in part, a cultural one: “No one would dream of boasting that they couldn’t read, but many people stand on platforms, write in blogs, appear on radio and television, admit to friends and colleagues, proudly showcasing our inability to handle everyday maths.”
NIACE’s report into the issue is due to be published later on Tuesday.
Last year a committee of MPs found that large numbers of England’s adult working population remained functionally illiterate or innumerate – despite the government’s £9bn Skills for Life programme.
The committee said there had been far less progress in tackling numeracy, compared with improving literacy among adults.
And the number of people with very poor numeracy skills who have participated in adult numeracy courses was very small, it added.
“Poor numeracy skills have a devastating effect on many people’s lives”
Dame Mary Marsh
Author Dame Mary Marsh writes in the NIACE report’s introduction: “As a country we have long recognised that we have a problem with numbers.
“Yet no other country seems to take so much pride in our difficulties. We say, ‘I’m useless at maths cheerfully’, and with a sense of finality.
“Poor numeracy skills have a devastating effect on many people’s lives.”
People who reach adulthood with poor numeracy skills are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, far less likely to receive work-related training, get a promotion or receive a wage increase, the report said.
Dame Mary said that the Skills for Life strategy, to address poor numeracy had “pumped billions of pounds” into raising literacy and numeracy standards.
But this had only had a “limited effect on numeracy”, she added.
A study for the National Audit Office in 2008 found that just one in 10 adults with numeracy skills lower than an 11-year-old had taken part in a numeracy course.
The NIACE report calls for “a cultural shift” in the nation’s attitude to numeracy.
“We urge the government to bring the pleasure of numeracy and numbers to the population in the way that reading and books has become such a focus since the first National Year of Reading,” Dame Mary added.
The report also calls for adults to be taught using real life activities, for more adult numeracy teachers and support workers, and for help to be targeted at adults with the poorest numeracy skills.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “We are committed to offering fully funded literacy and numeracy courses for all those who left school without these basic skills.
“The government is currently reviewing the quality of literacy and numeracy skills provision and examining how it equips individuals with the skills they need to get a job and play a full part in society.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Street fundraising is much maligned, even providing material for television comedy
Manchester has become the latest city to restrict the activities of street charity fundraisers – “chuggers” to the critics – but some observers warn good causes will have to become even more persistent to survive tough times. Is the antipathy between Britain’s shoppers and fundraisers about to intensify?
Hi, can I stop you there? Do you have a minute to talk? Have you ever thought about giving to charity?
Not today? Mind how you go, now.
With their brightly-coloured tabards, youthful energy and unflaggingly cheerful demeanours, face-to-face fundraisers have become as much a fixture of UK high streets as Marks and Spencer and late-night binge drinking.
To their advocates, they play a crucial role in keeping campaigns and benevolent organisations going at a time of economic uncertainty.
To detractors, however, these “chuggers” – a derogatory term, abbreviated from “charity muggers” – are a national nuisance who use emotional blackmail and harassment to shake down shoppers for direct debits.
Either way, the face of eliciting direct debit contributions in the UK is changing.
“What ‘chugging’ taught me”
James Brown, a 26-year-old technical project manager from London, worked as a street fundraiser for charities like Amnesty International, Water Aid and WorldVision when he was a student
The days were long, hard and repetitive. With Amnesty the target was for each of us to get eight people a day to give £5 a month.
It wasn’t my natural tendency to just go up to people and stop them. In England we’re all a bit reserved about that sort of thing.
But eventually you find a way to do it that fits with your personality. You learn about negotiation. You develop a thicker skin when people shout at you or give you abuse – you learn not to take it personally because they don’t know you.
It’s the kinds of things you learn in a call centre, but today if I’m in a meeting or dealing with a client today I would definitely use those same business skills.
Manchester has become the latest city to restrict the practice, confining the bib-clad, clipboard-wielding battalions to four sites in its centre and allowing them only to ply their trade on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 0900 and 1800.
It is the 40th local authority to strike such an agreement with the fundraising industry’s voluntary regulators – both a response to objections from sections of the press and public, and a recognition by the industry that it needed to assuage such sentiments.
The move may go some way towards placating the critics. But Sophie Hudson, who covers the fundraising industry for The Third Sector magazine, suspects that it could be offset by broader financial pressures on charities operating within the same precarious economic climate as the rest of the country.
“The main problem seems to be that there’s going to be an increase in demand for services but they’re facing cuts left, right and centre,” she says.
“Even though face-to-face fundraising has attracted a lot of negative publicity, there may be a feeling that whatever works is what needs to be done.”
This contradiction is framed by two key observations.
The first is that street fundraising is, for many charities, demonstrably effective.
According to the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA), the method brings in up to 600,000 new regular donations each year and donors recruited face-to-face are worth £120m annually to good causes. It also estimates that up to 18% of those who make direct debit or standing order payments do so having been recruited in the street or on the doorstep.
“There’s an assumption that if they say no they are being mean”
Lord Foulkes
The second is that the public, whenever asked, tend to express an aversion to the tactic. A 2009 survey suggested that two-thirds of people would cross the street to avoid them.
Though it may feel like it has been around for longer, the technique which has been only widely been practised in the UK since the 1990s. More recently, many charities have also begun expanding face-to-face tactics beyond the high street and onto householders’ doorsteps.
One critic of chugging who fears the situation could deteriorate is Lord Foulkes, a Labour peer and Member of the Scottish Parliament who introduced a motion at Holyrood urging ministers to do more to regulate the industry.
He says the conduct of street fundraisers has been the focus of an increasing number of complaints from his constituents in the Lothians.
“They feel harassed – they always feel there’s an assumption that if they say no they are being mean, when in fact they may already give generously to charity,” he says.
“I can see that this is a tough climate for charities and they are having to do more with less. My concern is that this will force them into an even more aggressive approach.”
Face-to-face code of conductIncludes rules requiring fundraisers “to never deliberately confuse, mislead or obstruct the public”Enforced by the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, who use “mystery shoppers” to ensure complianceComplaints procedure for members of the public and local authorities
The industry is, of course, used to fending off criticism. In 2010 a BBC Newsnight report warned that it would take the the average donor would take more than a year to cover the fee paid to charities by the fundraising companies the employ to drum up new recruits on the street.
In response, the companies’ watchdog said the firms provided a good return on the investment.
Likewise, PFRA chief executive Mick Aldridge insists that face-to-face fundraising is practised professionally according to the body’s code of practice. He observes that only 0.6% of those signed up this way go on to make a complaint.
It is true, he acknowledges, that face-to-face fundraising has remained steady during the downturn and its aftermath despite direct main and telephone-generated income for charities having dropped off.
Yet he argues that, in a very even market, any good causes which suddenly decided to flood the nation’s high streets with an increased number of bibs and tabards would encounter the law of diminishing returns.
“For the last eight to 10 years, the number of people signing up face-to-face has been remarkably stable – 500,000 to 600,000 each year,” he says.
“It wouldn’t make sense to throw out more and more fundraisers onto the street. People’s attitudes would harden over time and it would prove less and less effective.”
Those avowed critics of the practice will hope that he is right.
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