A pioneering clinical trial is testing the effectiveness in leukemia of a small molecule that shuts down MDM2, a protein that can disable the well-known tumor suppressor called p53.
Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Medicine and chief of Molecular Hematology and Therapy in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, presented preliminary results of this ongoing Phase I study at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology. The clinical trial is under way at MD Anderson and five other sites in the United States and United Kingdom.
“The first-in-class drug has shown clinical activity in some patients and been well-tolerated”, Andreeff said.
Scientists at Scripps Research Institute have found a way to reprogram mature human cells into their pluripotent state and safely turn them into stem cells which as we know can change into other cell types. This reprogramming would pave the way for the large-scale production of stem cells that could be used inexpensively and consistently in drug development. Cures for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and many other diseases might be possible if new cells could be created from a patient’s own cells to replace those that are diseased or damaged.
In his research report, Associate Professor Sheng Ding, PhD, reports a novel cocktail of drug-like small molecules that, with the assistance of a gene called Oct4, enables reprogramming of human skin cells into stem cells.
In his blog Dr. Bertalan Meskó wrote about this new and in some way unusual journal – Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine. The idea to create such a journal was floating in the air and finally we can see its implementation.