New Chemical Tools Lead To Targeted Cancer Drugs 21
New submitter caudex writes: Proteins are encoded in DNA, and while the degeneracy of the genetic code works to minimize errors, a single DNA basepair mutation can change the structure of the encoded protein. When a mutated protein causes uncontrolled cell growth, we call it cancer. Unfortunately, proteins typically contain hundreds of amino acids, and developing a drug that will target the version of a protein containing one amino acid mutation is difficult. For this reason, most anticancer agents indiscriminately attack both mutant and healthy proteins and tissues. Researchers at Caltech have come up with a potentially general method for selectively drugging only the mutant protein at fault for cancerous activity, even in the crowded and complex milieu of living cells. Their proof of concept study published in Nature Chemistry targets the E17K mutation, which can be the causative mutation of many types of cancer.
Ken Burns documentary a couple of weeks back (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a typical Ken Burns documentary, history etc. One salient part of the documentary was that cancer is not a single disease. It is a huge variety of diseases causing uncontrolled cell divisions. Further the cancer a patient has changes, evolves over time. Many promising drugs work very well initially but the cancer adapts to the drug.
Another salient part of it is the exponential increase in the cost of treatment. It has gone upwards of 100,000$ per patient per year in drugs. I am sure the researchers in Caltech know more about it than I do, but still, one wonders are they raising hopes needlessly and prematurely.
Re: (Score:2)
60 minutes had a story as well about a modified version of the polio virus being used to trigger an immune system response to the cancer cells. It seems (maybe I am just overly optimistic) that more progress is beginning to be made against cancer, since the introduction of chemo and radiation therapies.
Re: (Score:1)
http://www.medicaldaily.com/po... [medicaldaily.com]
The FDA is concerned about the modified virus spreading to normal cells. Currently, the researchers are confident that the modified Polio Virus cannot transfer.
This new chemical treatment is maybe not as far along, but encouraging to see as well.
Re:The reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh shut up.
First of all, if you even bothered to wake up in the morning you would see that chemo treatments, even 'cures' are very, very profitable. The MBAs running the pharmaceutical companies are way smarter than you are.
Next, it is a potential treatment, nothing of a cure so even Big Evil Pharma will be joyously happy.
Third, it's just a proof-of-potential, not even a proof of concept. Dealing with the protein effects of a single point mutation, AFIR, hasn't been shown to treat any clinical cancers. In fact, this seems to be a better fit for creating an antiviral or antibiotic than a specific cancer treatment.
Re:The reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
This remains complete horseshit. There's no conspiracy to keep cancer cures from the public. As a cancer survivor I'm weary of this constant bullshit being spread around by idiots.
Re: (Score:2)
I already had cancer you idiot. You don't have a single piece of evidence to back up your claim.
Novel but not that useful (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure why this kind of cute 'inside baseball' research is being posted on Slashdot. Firstly there are many and better ways of screening for peptides -- the click chemistry trick is probably applicable only for this this proof of concept (toy) system. Good luck with a real protein. Secondly peptides are useful for research and totally useless as drugs. Thirdly the summary is really wrong here, the minimal in vivo data shown here does not come close to addressing the "complex milieu" of cells much less cancer much less Akt mutation driven cancer
So which member of the Cal Tech research team posted this slashvertisement? Congratulations on your Nature Chemistry paper. By they way it has gone to your head.