The upcoming year 2013 will spark a new genetic age in cancer research, where drugs target specific types of DNA. The question now is whether one drug will wipe out many types of cancer without killing or damaging the good cells in the body, without side effects so serious that some people don’t survive the treatment? Check out the December 23, 2012 New York Times article by Gina Kolata, “Drugs Aim to Make Several Types of Cancer Self Destruct.”
For the first time ever, three pharmaceutical companies are poised to test whether new drugs can work against a wide range of cancers independently of where they originated — breast, prostate, liver, lung. The drugs go after an aberration involving a cancer gene fundamental to tumor growth. Many scientists see this as the beginning of a new genetic age in cancer research.
Scientists at the pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi are testing whether a new drug that targets all types of cancers actually will work. Tumors nearly always have the exact genetic problem the drug was meant to attack — a fusion of two large proteins.
If the drug works, it should bring these raging cancers to a halt. Then the pharmaceutical firm would test the drug on a broad range of cancers with a similar genetic alteration. But if the drug fails against liposarcoma, the pharmaceutical company will reluctantly admit defeat.
Ironically, in some European countries, pharmaceutical companies have reported difficulties in supplying certain medications, namely cancer drugs and antibiotics. But manufacturers of the products say that in most cases other drugs are available as replacements. The decrease in supply is cited as resulting from an unexpected demand for the medicine as well as limited production capacity.
Developing one drug that will destroy all types of cancers
The goal at Sanofi is to develop one drug that will destroy all types of cancer cells but not harm good cells. The process focuses on working within the new field of genetic alteration with a drug that targets cancerous DNA but not normal DNA. Healthy cells have a mechanism that tells them to die if their DNA is too badly damaged to repair. Cancer cells have grotesquely damaged DNA. Ordinarily cancer cells would self-destruct, except when cancer cells disable the protein that is supposed to destroy cancerous DNA.
A protein known as p53 normally sets things in motion. But cancer cells disable p53, either directly, with a mutation, or indirectly, by attaching the p53 protein to another cellular protein that blocks it. The goal of cancer researchers has long been to reanimate p53 in cancer cells so they will die on their own, according to the NY Times article. The field is known as molecular genetics within the arena of molecular biology.
Pharmaceutical firms such as Roche, Merck and Sanofi are testing thousands of molecules
In these experiments the sound of GMO, genetically modified organisms referring to targeting and changing cancer cells or destroying cancer cells without harming healthy cells has a different connotation and implication from the usual familiarity the general public has with genetic alternation as a concept. Cancer patients want the abnormal cells genetically changed.
In 2009, at Sanofi, the research team together with Shaomeng Wang at the University of Michigan and a biotech company, Ascenta Therapeutics, found a promising compound. The company tested the drug by pumping it each day into the stomachs of mice with sarcoma. For the first time three pharmaceutical companies are about to test whether new drugs can work against a wide range of cancers independently of where they originated — breast, prostate, liver, lung.
The drugs go after an aberration involving a cancer gene that is fundamental to tumor growth. The question now is will it work, and will it also work on humans as it does on mice given cancer? For further information, check out the following articles.
Resources: Titles with the same name have different articles at various sites
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