Scientists helping to develop the next generation of cancer beating drugs say they have had a major breakthrough with their latest results. The new drugs would target an enzyme that helps cells divide; in cancer, this enzyme is called Aurora B. This enzyme can go into overdrive and possibly lead to uncontrolled and abnormal cell divisions.
The idea is to inhibit the Aurora B that is overexpressed in cancer cells. This could lead to a new class of cancer drugs called Aurora inhibitors that are less toxic and have relatively mild side effects.
The University of Manchester team has been working on the Aurora B inhibitor in collaboration with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The group published an earlier paper in 2003 that highlighted the potential success of targeting Aurora B. These latest findings further strengthen the team's belief that Aurora B inhibition is the preferred route to an effective cancer therapy.
1. Targeted therapy drugs interfere with specific molecules (receptors and enzymes inside and outside a cancer cell). By focusing on these molecular and cellular changes, targeted cancer drugs go after the "target" in these cells, rather than just all cells. Because of this, "targeted" drugs may be more effective than current treatments, and may be less harmful to normal cells.
Whole cell profiling can discriminate between the activity of different "targeted" drugs and identify situations in which it is advantageous to combine the "targeted" drugs with other types of cancer drugs. Because these new "smart" drugs will work for "some" but not "all" cancer patients who receive them, whole cell profiling can accurately identify patients who would benefit from treatment with molecularly-targeted anti-cancer therapies.
Not only is this an important predictive test, but it is also a unique tool that can help to identify newer and better drugs, evaluate promising drug combinations, and serve as a "gold standard" correlative model with which to develop new DNA, RNA, and protein-based tests that better predict for drug activity. This kind of technique exists, and might be very valuable, especially when active chemoagents are limited in a particular disease.
Posted at 2:34AM on Oct 31st 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski