Research news: winter 2012 edition

In the Winter edition of the Research Review:

• ‘Breast cancer’ has been reclassified into approximately ten separate diseases after a landmark UK study.
• A US trial for a new HER-2 positive breast cancer treatment, or medical ‘smart-bomb’, is shown to extend life expectancy with fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy.
• Brain tumours in nine out of ten patients with metastisised melanoma have shrunk in a clinical trial run by Westmead Millennium Institute for Cancer Research.