X
Pharma Advancement
  • Home
  • Drug Development
    • All
    • Clinical Trials
    • FDA Approvals
    • Research & Development

    NHS Acquires Potentially Lifesaving Breast Cancer Medication

    Transfusion of The First Patients Lab-Grown Blood Cells

    Bispecific Cancer Drugs, Gene Therapy Advances At Next ASH

    First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

    First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

    $2 Million Gene Therapy Might Become The Standard In The US

    $2 Million Gene Therapy Might Become The Standard In The US

    Cancer Medicine Prices Jump 53% In Five Years In The U.S

    Food And Drug Administration User Fee Has Been Reauthorized

    Cancer Clinical Trials Get A Brand New Platform In Melbourne

    Report Indicates UK £62bn Behind In Global R&D Investment

    Report Indicates UK £62bn Behind In Global R&D Investment

  • Manufacturing
  • Supply Chain
  • Facilities
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Events
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Drug Development
    • All
    • Clinical Trials
    • FDA Approvals
    • Research & Development

    NHS Acquires Potentially Lifesaving Breast Cancer Medication

    Transfusion of The First Patients Lab-Grown Blood Cells

    Bispecific Cancer Drugs, Gene Therapy Advances At Next ASH

    First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

    First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

    $2 Million Gene Therapy Might Become The Standard In The US

    $2 Million Gene Therapy Might Become The Standard In The US

    Cancer Medicine Prices Jump 53% In Five Years In The U.S

    Food And Drug Administration User Fee Has Been Reauthorized

    Cancer Clinical Trials Get A Brand New Platform In Melbourne

    Report Indicates UK £62bn Behind In Global R&D Investment

    Report Indicates UK £62bn Behind In Global R&D Investment

  • Manufacturing
  • Supply Chain
  • Facilities
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Events
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Pharma Advancement
No Result
View All Result
Home Americas

New plan of attack in cancer fight

Yuvraj_pawp by Yuvraj_pawp
22nd July 2013
in Americas, News

New research conducted by Harvard scientists is laying out a road map to one of the holy grails of modern medicine: a cure for cancer.

As described in a paper recently published in eLife, Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and of biology and director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and co-author Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a “targeted therapy” – a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer’s ability to grow and spread – could effectively cure nearly all cancers.

Though the research is not a cure for cancer, Nowak said it does offer hope to researchers and patients alike.

“In some sense this is like the mathematics that allows us to calculate how to send a rocket to the moon, but it doesn’t tell you how to build a rocket that goes to the moon,” Nowak said. “What we found is that if you have a single point mutation in the genome that can give rise to resistance to both drugs at the same time, the game is over. We need to have combinations such that there is zero overlap between the drugs.”

Importantly, Nowak said, for the two-drug combination to work, both drugs must be given together – an idea that runs counter to the way many clinicians treat cancer today.

“We actually have to work against the status quo somewhat,” he said. “But we can show in our model that if you don’t give the drugs simultaneously, it guarantees treatment failure.”

In earlier studies, Nowak and colleagues showed the importance of using multiple drugs. Though temporarily effective, single-drug targeted therapy will fail, the researchers revealed, because the disease eventually develops resistance to the treatment.

To determine if a two-drug combination would work, Nowak and Bozic turned to an expansive data set supplied by clinicians at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center that showed how patients respond to single-drug therapy. With data in hand, they were able to create computer models of how multidrug treatments would work. Using that model, they then treated a series of “virtual patients” to determine how the disease would react to the multidrug therapy.

“For a single-drug therapy, we know there are between 10 and 100 places in the genome that, if mutated, can give rise to resistance,” Nowak explained. “So the first parameter we use when we make our calculations is that the first drug can be defeated by those possible mutations. The second drug can also be defeated by 10 to 100 mutations.

“If any of those mutations are the same, then it’s a disaster,” he continued. “If there’s even a single mutation that can defeat both drugs, that is usually good enough for the cancer – it will become resistant, and treatment will fail. What this means is we have to develop drugs such that the cancer needs to make two independent steps – if we can do that, we have a good chance to contain it.”

“You would expect to cure most patients with a two-drug combination,” Bozic said. “In patients with a particularly large disease burden you might want to use a three-drug combination, but you would cure most with two drugs.”

The trick now, Nowak and Bozic said, is to develop those drugs. To avoid developing drugs that are not vulnerable to the same mutation, Bozic said, pharmaceutical companies have explored a number of strategies, including using different drugs to target different pathways in cancer’s development.

“There are pharmaceutical companies here in Cambridge that are working to develop these drugs,” Nowak said. “There may soon be as many as 100 therapies, which means there will be as many as 10,000 possible combinations, so we should have a good repertoire to choose from.

“I think we can be confident that, within 50 years, many cancer deaths will be prevented,” Nowak added. “One hundred years ago, many people died from bacterial infections, and now they would be cured. Today, many people die from cancer, and we can’t help them, but I think once we have these targeted therapies, we will be able to help many people – maybe not everyone – but many people.”

Tags: America
Previous Post

Uncovering a healthier remedy for chronic pain

Next Post

Studies suggest new key to 'switching off' hypertension

Related Posts

FDA Approvals

NHS Acquires Potentially Lifesaving Breast Cancer Medication

9th November 2022
Clinical Trials

Transfusion of The First Patients Lab-Grown Blood Cells

9th November 2022
Clinical Trials

Bispecific Cancer Drugs, Gene Therapy Advances At Next ASH

8th November 2022
India Seeks Better Pharma Market Access In The UK: Official
Facilities & Operation

India Seeks Better Pharma Market Access In The UK: Official

8th November 2022
First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies
Clinical Trials

First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

7th November 2022
CPhI Pharma Index Shows Unprecedented Global Pharma Optimism
Facilities & Operation

CPhI Pharma Index Shows Unprecedented Global Pharma Optimism

5th November 2022
Next Post

Studies suggest new key to 'switching off' hypertension

Latest News

FDA Approvals

NHS Acquires Potentially Lifesaving Breast Cancer Medication

9th November 2022
Clinical Trials

Transfusion of The First Patients Lab-Grown Blood Cells

9th November 2022
Clinical Trials

Bispecific Cancer Drugs, Gene Therapy Advances At Next ASH

8th November 2022
India Seeks Better Pharma Market Access In The UK: Official
Facilities & Operation

India Seeks Better Pharma Market Access In The UK: Official

8th November 2022
First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies
Clinical Trials

First Virtual Drug Study Tests 2 Likely Alzheimer Therapies

7th November 2022
Pharma Advancement

About Us

Pharma Advancement is a leading Pharma information centric website. On one side Pharmaadvancement.com has established itself as one of the most efficient and comprehensive source of Pharma information online, dedicated to providing decision makers in all the Pharma industry sectors with reliable, accurate and useful insights into happenings in the Pharma sector.

Qucik Links

  • Drug Development
  • Manufacturing
  • News
  • Events & Conferences
  • Newsletter Archive

Resources

  • Advertise with us
  • Contact Us
  • Download Mediapack

System

  • Search
  • Sitemap
  • RSS Feed

© 2017 Copyright © Valuemediaservices 2017 All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Drug Development
  • Manufacturing
  • Supply Chain
  • Facilities
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Events
  • Contact Us

© 2017 Copyright © Valuemediaservices 2017 All rights reserved.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In