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Researchers Use 'Decoy' Molecule to Treat Cancer

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the as-good-as-the-real-thing dept.

Jerry Rivers writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that scientists in British Columbia have successfully used a 'decoy' molecule to shrink advanced prostate tumors. Citing a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the the Globe story explains how the researchers are the first to find a way to block the process of androgen reception in cells and prevent, a key trigger in the onset of prostate cancer."

2 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Article by The+Step+Child · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a link to the abstract from the original paper:

    http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/4/133 1

  2. A little more info by DrKyle · · Score: 4, Informative

    They used a truncated portion of the steroid receptor that makes the cells divide, it would competitively inhibit the real receptors from triggering cell division.

    They managed to test against human tumors which had been xenografted into mice, they packaged their new therapeutic transgene into a modified lentivirus then injected the virus directly into the tumor site.

    While this result is promising, it suffers from the same drawbacks as many gene therapies: we can figure out what to put into the cell to fix it, but the big problem is finding a very effective vehicle (virus) to target a high proportion of the required cells.