Researchers at Johns Hopkins discovered that a drug commonly used to treat toenail fungus could block angiogenesis, blood vessels that feed a tumor.

The drug, itraconazole, is FDA approved for human use, which may fast-track its availability as an anti-cancer drug.

If you are interested in reading more about Angiogenesis and cancer growth you can read my post back in July.

The researchers at this point have yet to determine exactly how itraconazole works to stop vessel growth.

Within Our Grasp, Or Slipping Away? Assuring a New Era of Scientific and Medical Progress is a twenty one page report written by Johns Hopkins University and seven other institutions.

These institutions petitioned Congress not to let biomedical research funding stagnate. The scientists say that funding for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and spinal cord injury research is not keeping up with the times.

The scientists argued years of stagnant budgets for the National Institute of Health interrupted promising research and drove young investigators into other careers.

"Warning bells should be sounding loudly in Congress and among the public, " said Edward Miller, Hopkins dean and CEO. "The world's premier biomedical research engine is at risk"

Currently, eight of ten research grant applications are going unfunded, according to the report and principal investigators are spending more time raising funds instead of conducting research.

The primary recipient of the 2006 grants for Curing Kid's Cancer is the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Curing Kid's Cancer is a charity that raises money for leading edge pediatric cancer research. The organization was inspired by nine year old Killian Owen's battle with leukemia. The $100,000 grant was given to Johns Hopkins for research into new targeted therapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Curing Kid's Cancer has two national grassroots programs -- Coaches Curing Kid's Cancer and Teachers Curing Kid's Cancer.

The programs fund the development of cutting edge therapies which will revolutionize childhood cancer treatment by replacing traditional chemotherapy.

Curing Kid's Cancer aims to raise both awareness and money to find cures for all types of childhood cancers. Their objective is to turn this killer disease into a curable one in our lifetime.

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center specialists have figured out how to accurately test drive chemotherapy drugs to learn in advance which drug treatments offer each individual pancreatic cancer patient the best therapeutic journey.

Test driving cancer drugs is used widely to test cancer therapies, the Hopkins design is personalized to each patient who has relapsed after an initial course of chemotherapy. The standard drug given at this point is gemcitabine, which has a success rate of less than 10 percent.

Reporting on their work in a recent issue of Clinical Cancer Research and at the September meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Chicago, the Hopkins team said it took tiny bits of a patient's tumor removed after surgery, and implanted them into one or two mice. This process currently requires about six months to get the information on which drugs work best.

Manuel Hidalgo, M.D. Ph.D., associate professor at Hopkin's Kimmel Cancer Center says that "In the meantime, most patients are receiving their first rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. This information can guide therapy once patients relapse, which is generally in nine to twelve months with pancreatic cancer".

Pancreatic cancer accounts for more than 33,000 new cases in the United States and almost as many deaths. Less than five percent of patients living beyond five years.

Despite tensions between the United States and the Middle East, Laura Bush announced Monday a plan to raise breast cancer awareness in the Middle East -- first with partnerships with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and later with Morocco and Jordan. Joining forces also with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Johns Hopkins Medical Center, the First Lady outlined a plan that will allow governments, hospitals, researchers, and survivors to work globally to defeat breast cancer. Campaigns specific to each country will target research, training, and community-outreach programs. The reason for this partnership -- to raise awareness in countries where women are too embarrassed or too uninformed to seek treatment -- stems from compassion and human decency and a desire to form diplomatic friendships too. Laura Bush, whose own mother is a breast cancer survivor, shared that the tragedy of losing a loved one to breast cancer -- and the joy of watching a loved one survive this same disease -- is felt universally. Breast cancer affects all women in all countries. Borders make no difference in this matter. And helping save lives is the right thing to do.