Situated almost right next to each other in Boston, helping the lives of so many who need it, are the Joslin Diabetes Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Patients from around the globe visit this particular area of Beantown, receiving some of the best treatment available for their respective illness. Now, scientists have found that there is much more of a connection between diabetes and cancer than the zip code of these research centers.

Plans are already being drawn up for initial human trials for the use of a diabetes drug that has been shown to dramatically increase the efficacy of platinum-based chemotherapy. Researchers from Dana-Farber found that when the diabetes drug Rosizitaglone (more popularly known by its brand name of Avandia) was administered in conjunction with a platinum chemotherapy agent, the synergistic result was three times as effective at shrinking tumors (in mice) than the platinum chemotherapy agent alone.

Researchers hope that the use of this treatment could improve control of ovarian, lung and other cancers that are typically treated with platinum chemotherapy, particularly since these types of cancer can become resistant to the chemotherapy alone over time. In addition, they are examining whether the use of Rosizitaglone - which itself was designed to enhance the sensitivity of insulin receptors in people with type 2 diabetes - could also be used for treating types of cancer that platinum chemotherapy alone had not previously been shown to be effective.