First the Nobel peace prize ... then I single handedly bring Osama to justice ... now I earn the Nobel price in Medicine ... and all you Freepers ever do is complain ... about me!
Posted on 03/14/2012 7:10:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists have identified a new compound that rapidly kills hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, the most common form of liver cancer and fifth most common cancer worldwide, while sparing healthy tissue. The compound, Factor Qunolinone Inhibitor 1 (FQI1), works by inhibiting an oncogene originally discovered by a team of researchers led by Devanand Sarkar, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., Harrison Scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center, Blick Scholar and assistant professor in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics and member of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine.
Recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study demonstrates that HCC cells have what is known as an "oncogene addiction" to the transcription factor Late SV40 Factor (LSF). Oncogene addiction is a term used when a cancer cell is found to be dependent on a single gene to survive. Using the compound Factor Quinolinone Inhibitor 1 (FQI1), the scientists prevented LSF from binding to HCC DNA during the transcription process, which is the first step in a series of actions that lead to cell division and duplication. This action caused rapid HCC cell death in laboratory experiments and a dramatic reduction in tumor growth in mouse models with no observable toxicity to normal liver cells.
"We may be on the verge of developing a new, effective drug for liver cancer," said Sarkar. "In the last 2 to 3 years, we demonstrated the role of LSF in liver cancer and have been screening over 110,000 compounds to identify the ones that inhibit LSF function. We identified FQI1 as one of a class of effective compounds, but we never anticipated it would work this well."
Sarkar discovered LSF's role in liver cancer in 2010 when he demonstrated significantly higher LSF levels in HCC patients in comparison to healthy individuals, and showed that inhibition of LSF reduced the progression of HCC in laboratory experiments. This finding led to the collaboration between VCU and Boston University that resulted in the discovery of FQI1.
Now that FQI1 has been identified, pharmacokinetic studies are being conducted to determine how the drug behaves in the human body. Once the scientists have determined how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized and eliminated from the body, they will work with clinicians to translate their findings into phase I clinical trials in patients with liver cancer.
"We have proven this compound is effective and nontoxic in living animals," said Sarkar. "While we won't know how FQI1 reacts in humans until the first clinical trial, we are very excited by our findings and hope they lead to a new drug for a disease that is currently very difficult to treat."
WOOHOO! I don’t have to back off on my drinkin!
Woo hoo ... good for VCU.
It says cancer, not cirrhosis
I hope they come up with something for pancreatic cancer. I’ve known too many good people who have succumbed to that horrible cancer.
Don’t get me wrong, all cancers are horrible, but there is almost a zero 5 year survival rate for cancer of the pancreas.
First the Nobel peace prize ... then I single handedly bring Osama to justice ... now I earn the Nobel price in Medicine ... and all you Freepers ever do is complain ... about me!
This is for cancer, not cirrhosis!...........
I am SOOO glad to see this. I lost my wife to Liver Cancer in 95 (she was 29). Every way to go from cancer is a bad one, but liver cancer is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It is a VERY horrible way to die.
Hopefully they get this into a form of treatment and on the market ASAP.
Now, that is the worst cancer.
So sorry to hear that. I lost my mother the same way. Yes, it is an awful way to go.
Yeah, but will the 0bama0-care death panels allow your life to be prolonged?
Perhaps, based on the following parameters in order of importance.
1. Correct ideology (trumps all the following)
2. Race
3. Gender
4. Sexual orientation
5. Age (must be between 25 and 45 to qualify)
RE: New compound discovered that rapidly kills liver cancer
Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t kill the patient with it...
RE: “We have proven this compound is effective and nontoxic in living animals,” said Sarkar. “While we won’t know how FQI1 reacts in humans until the first clinical trial, we are very excited by our findings and hope they lead to a new drug for a disease that is currently very difficult to treat.”
_______________
Sigh, it often works on animals ( mostly mice ), but when tested on humans...
Anyway, testing from phase 1 clinical trials, to phase 2, then phase 3, then phase 4 to final FDA approval for something like this could approach a DECADE costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
And it might not even be approved for various reasons.
Let’s all hope nobody here gets liver cancer in the meantime .
Under certain conditions, some phases can be skipped and go directly to full FDA approval, IF the drug shows that it’s efficacy is so beyond what is expected and side effects are shown to be minimal...............
bkmk
How dare VCU research/study a non-AIDS disease. /sarc
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