Tag Archives: drug

Drug-antibody pair has promising activity in non-Hodgkin lymphoma

The ongoing open-label phase 2 study presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting was designed to test the activity of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) including B-cell cancers such as diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The antibody-toxin compound has been approved for treatment of relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic T cell lymphoma, and its success prompted the trial in NHL, said Eric Jacobsen, MD, of Dana-Farber, senior author of the study. First author is Nancy Bartlett, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine. …

Fundamental differences found between human cancers, genetically engineered mouse models

These genetically engineered mouse models (which usually either overexpress a cancer-causing gene — or "oncogene" — or carry a deletion for a "tumor suppressor" gene) have been extensively used to understand human cancer biology in studies of drug resistance, early detection, metastasis, and cancer prevention, as well as for the preclinical development of novel targeted therapeutics. Cancer is a multistep process that involves a complex interplay between genetic and epigenetic alterations. Epigenetic modifications mediate changes in gene expression without altering the DNA sequence. …

Blocking antioxidants in cancer cells reduces tumor growth in mice

In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Navdeep Chandel and colleagues from Northwestern University report the effects of a SOD1 pharmacological inhibitor on non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. The inhibitor, called ATN-224, stunted the growth of human NSCLC cells in culture and induced their death. The researchers also found that ATN-224 inhibited other antioxidant proteins, which caused high levels of hydrogen peroxide inside the cells. The ability of cancer cells to produce hydrogen peroxide was required for ATN-224-dependent effects, because hydrogen peroxide activated cell death pathways. …

Pills of the future: Nanoparticles; Researchers design drug-carrying nanoparticles that can be taken orally

Now, researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have developed a new type of nanoparticle that can be delivered orally and absorbed through the digestive tract, allowing patients to simply take a pill instead of receiving injections. In a paper appearing in the Nov. 27 online edition of Science Translational Medicine, the researchers used the particles to demonstrate oral delivery of insulin in mice, but they say the particles could be used to carry any kind of drug that can be encapsulated in a nanoparticle…

Fungus-fighting drug may make mild flu meaner

The findings suggest that patients receiving the antifungal therapy may be functionally immunocompromised and more vulnerable to influenza and other viral infections, the researchers said. "Many critically ill cancer and bone marrow transplant patients are treated with Amphotericin B-based therapies each year," said Abraham Brass of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS)…

Cancer treatment: A step towards personalized chronotherapy

An international study conducted on mice and coordinated by researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Universit Paris-Sud has paved the way towards personalized chronotherapy treatments. In an article published in the journal Cancer Research, the team has shown that the timing of optimal tolerance to irinotecan, a widely used anti-cancer drug, varies by 8 hours depending on the sex and genetic background of mice…

Oral drug may improve survival in men with metastatic prostate cancer

The study, published on Nov. 19, 2013, in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, adds long-term survival and safety data for the drug tasquinimod, a new candidate for treating advanced and recurrent prostate cancer. “While all subgroups in the clinical trial benefited from tasquinimod, those whose cancer metastasized to their bones had the greatest benefit in terms of delaying the time from the start of treatment to when the cancer progressed,” said lead author Andrew J…

Biologists ID new cancer weakness

A new study from MIT biologists has found that tumor cells with mutated p53 can be made much more vulnerable to chemotherapy by blocking another gene called MK2. In a study of mice, tumors lacking both p53 and MK2 shrank dramatically when treated with the drug cisplatin, while tumors with functional MK2 kept growing after treatment. The findings suggest that giving cancer patients a combination of a DNA-damaging drug and an MK2 inhibitor could be very effective, says Michael Yaffe, the David H. Koch Professor in Science and senior author of a paper describing the research in the Nov…