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.

Comments

Ken Burns documentary a couple of weeks back

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

NPR had a Ken Burns documentary on cancer, the emperor of maladies (or mother of all diseases or something similar).

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.