Posted on 02/04/2007 11:45:52 AM PST by anymouse
Her carefully cultured cells were dead and Katherine Schaefer was annoyed, but just a few minutes later, the researcher realized she had stumbled onto a potential new cancer treatment.
Schaefer and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York believe they have discovered a new way to attack tumors that have learned how to evade existing drugs.
Tests in mice suggest the compound helps break down the cell walls of tumors, almost like destroying a tumor cell's "skeleton."
The researchers will test the new compound for safety and hope they can develop it to treat cancers such as colon cancer, esophageal cancer, liver and skin cancers.
"I was using these cancer cells as models of the normal intestine," Schaefer said in a telephone interview.
Normal human cells are difficult to grow and study in the lab, because they tend to die. But cancer cells live much longer and are harder to kill, so scientists often use them.
Schaefer was looking for drugs to treat the inflammation seen in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both of which cause pain and diarrhea.
She was testing a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator. It would never normally have been thought of as a cancer drug, or in fact a drug of any kind.
"I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died," Schaefer said.
A colleague overheard her complaining. "The co-author on my paper said,' Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?' I said 'Oh', and took a closer look."
They ran several tests and found the compound killed "pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen," Schaefer said. Epithelial cells line organs such as the colon, and also make up skin.
It also killed colon tumors in mice without making the mice sick, they reported in the journal International Cancer Research.
The compound works in much the same way as the taxane drugs, including Taxol, which were originally derived from Pacific yew trees.
"It targets part of the cell cytoskeleton called tubulin," Schaefer said. Tubulin is used to build microtubules, which in turn make up the cell's structure.
Destroying it kills the cell, but cancer cells eventually evolve mechanisms to pump out the drugs that do this, a problem called resistance.
"Resistance to anti-tubulin therapies is a huge problem in many cancers. We see this as another way to get to the tubulin," Schaefer said.
The PPAR-gamma compound does this in a different way from the taxanes, which might mean it could overcome the resistance that tumor cells often develop to chemotherapy.
"Most of the drugs like Taxol affect the ability of tubulin to forms into microtubules. This doesn't do that -- it causes the tubulin itself to disappear. We do not know why."
Schaefer's team plans more safety tests in mice. As the compound is already patented, her team will probably have to design something slightly different to be able to patent it as a new drug.
Taxol, developed by U.S. National Cancer Institute researchers and manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1993, had annual sales of $1.6 billion at its peak in 2000.
Taxol, developed by U.S. National Cancer Institute researchers and manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1993, had annual sales of $1.6 billion at its peak in 2000.
Or they can license the patented drug to let Bristol-Myers Squibb recover their investment and let this breakthrough treatment get throught the FDA much quicker and out to cancer patients years earlier, thus saving many lives that otherwise would be lost waiting for a new non-patented version to be developed and run through the FDA trials.
I'll defer to the scientists on what is best for the patient, but this just sounds like greed getting in the way of good medicine. (Not that I don't suspect that Reuters is spining this to make bigPharm look bad.)
ping.
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Interesting. I wonder how many of science's greatest discoveries were "accidents". Assuming it proves to be safe and effective, I hope this gets on a fast track through whatever route they take it and it gets to patients quickly.
Medical science research ping.
I don't see how it can be patented anyway now that it has been described in print. You can't patent something that is already in the public domain.
All of them. Greatest words you can hear in the lab - "WTF????"
I believe that Fleming's discovery that led to penicillin was partially an accident.
I wouldn't get too excited--yet. Curing cancer in mice is not that hard.
My husband has stage four internal melanoma. We will try anything!!
Bristol-Myers Squibb doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this drug. The report rather confusingly mentions Taxol, which BMS makes, but the drug in question here is "a compound called a PPAR-gamma modulator," which is something else.
That said, it's always useful to remember that "may" means "may not" and so far the cure for cancer's been discovered every two months for the last twenty years.
What instantly popped into my mind, was penicillin...
thanks, bfl
WOOHOOO
2nd cure for cancer in a month - wheres my smokes!
Classic.
I hope they progress quickly....I'm a year overdue for a colonoscopy and really don't want to go there....
The story is that before Fleming's work other researchers saw mold killing bacteria but just thought "Dang! That mold is killing the bacteria I'm trying to grow. Have to start over and be more careful."
"........they have discovered a new way to attack tumors that have learned how to evade existing drugs."
Does this refer to tumors already in a person or is it talking about the ones formed initially?
How would a tumor develop a resistence to a cancer treatment unless the cancer had been previously exposed to the drug. If that's the case, cancer would have to be a disease that's transmitted from person to person.
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