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New Chemical Tools Lead To Targeted Cancer Drugs
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.
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Patents expire 20 years after being filed, thus becoming public after that time.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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.
The first episode was all about new cancer treatments similiar to this,
They coined the term, 2016 could be the first year that a therapy is introduced that will eradicate cancer versus the Pharma's actions of treating but not eliminating the problem..
I mean they gotta find ways to pay for their AMG's, porches, etc.... Right?>?
have fun
Keep on dreaming. That is exactly what they want you to do. Get cancer and you'll be paying big pharma until you eventually but certainly die.
There are so many cases of promising cures that suddenly seem to disappear into thin air and
take a look at the honest doctors who have already partially figured out why cancer treatments don't work.
They get ridiculed and become outcast in the medical world due to well paid support by big pharma.
Take a closer look into medical history and see how big pharma is pushing the medical world into their arms.
This is not something from the last decade but started around 1900 when the companies got a hold of the medical education system.
Cancer is an immune system defect. Perhaps treating the underlying cause (the basal immunity defect) would have far better rates of success than treating the symptoms (as is done now, and as this proposes).
Name one verifiable instance of this happening. You can't and won't.
I already had cancer you idiot. You don't have a single piece of evidence to back up your claim.