Month: July 2012

Hereditary Leiomyomatosis and Renal Cell Carcinoma (HLRCC) is a kidney cancer syndrome caused by mutation of Fumarate Hydratase (FH), a TCA cycle enzyme which catalyses the conversion of fumarate to malate. The accumulation of fumarate in FH-deficient cells results in the stabilisation of HIFα subunits, but it is unknown if this drives tumourigenesis. A recent … Read more

Autophagy is a process which is used to degrade cellular components and infectious agents, such as viruses, organelles and defective proteins. It is also activated during periods of bioenergetic stress in order to provide nutrients for cellular homeostasis. Previous blog entries have discussed how autophagy may be involved in TSC and VHL (see here and here respectively): this post … Read more

The abstracts from the Fourth BHD Symposium have now been published online in the journal Familial Cancer. The Symposium was held in March 2012 in Cincinnati, USA, and hosted over 90 BHD researchers, clinicians and patients. The latest findings and on-going research in the field of BHD were presented over the two days. The abstracts … Read more

Earlier this year, the 2nd International Conference for Organizations Representing Patients with Kidney Cancer was held in Rome, Italy. This meeting was organised by the International Kidney Cancer Coalition, with the aim of “expanding circles in supporting kidney cancer”. Consequently, clinicians, scientists, patients and patient advocates were brought together from around the world to share their ideas and … Read more