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[Mind]

I normally do not get too excited about new cancer treatments. I have seen hundreds of "blockbuster" cancer studies and treatments go bust during my life time.

 

However, this one has shown success in humans: https://futurism.com...ccine-factories

[Engadin]

I would like to add fresh yesterday news from the spanish CNIO, National Center of Cancer Research, to your hopeful post.

 

The following is a Google translated version of the news referred to at the end of the text:

 

"Researchers from the Experimental Oncology Group of the National Center for Oncological Research (CNIO), led by Mariano Barbacid, have managed to eliminate pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (ADP) in one experimental mouse model, one of the most aggressive forms of tumors and tumors, that more resistance presents to the current treatments. However, the scientist has warned that there are about 5-10 years left before the finding can be applied to the clinic.

 

The cure of this pancreatic cancer is limited to those cases in which the tumor is localized and can be surgically removed, which represents less than 10 percent of patients. Despite the important advances that are taking place in the field of personalized medicine and immunotherapy, this tumor still has a poor prognosis.

 

 

8,000 cases per year of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

 

In Spain according to the Cancer Observatory of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), one of the organizations that has funded the project led by Barbacid, there are about 8,000 cases per year, representing 2.2 percent of tumors males (2,129 cases) and 2.7 percent of those that affect women (1,750). The incidence can be considered average (adjusted global rate in 2002: 6.6 new cases / 100,000 inhabitants / year in men and 3.9 in women), although in the 50s there was a very important rise, which continues in the present with figures that reveal the high death rates of this disease.

 

 

Only 2% of the research for the pancreas

 

However, despite these data, the head of the Oncology Service of the Ramón y Cajal Hospital in Madrid and director of the Ramón y Cajal Institute for Health Research (Irycis), Alfredo Carrato, lamented that only two percent of the research is destined to pancreatic cancer, something that he considers "disproportionate", even more so if we take into account that 95 percent of patients die. In addition, and although pancreatic cancer represents 2.2 percent of all new cases of cancer, it is already the third cause of death, only behind lung and colon cancer, surpassing breast cancer mortality . In fact, ADP is projected to become the second leading cause of death by 2030 in addition to colon cancer.

 

 

KRAS Oncogene

 

"We are facing a tumor that causes more deaths in Europe, and is up to four times more frequent than breast cancer, so we are facing a major health emergency in which it is necessary to invest in their research to gain ground to the disease, "said Dr. Carrato.

 

However, although incidence and mortality rates are very high, knowledge about ADP has increased "exponentially" in recent years, both at the cellular and molecular levels. In fact, it is known that in 95% of the cases the initiating mutation takes place in the KRAS oncogene, whose signaling pathways are known but it has been seen that "it is not pharmacologically treatable", so it is unknown how to inhibit it.

 

 

Mouse models

 

Given this scenario, researchers have developed a new generation of genetically modified mouse models over the last five years in order to evaluate the therapeutic potential of two targets involved in the signaling of KRAS oncoproteins: the epidermal growth factor receptor ( EGFR, for its acronym in English) and the c-RAF kinase.

 

After failing to eliminate EGFR and c-RAF in isolation, the experts decided to analyze whether these targets could induce a therapeutic effect if they were eliminated at the same time, thus proving for the first time that ADP tumors were found in half of the mice. high-grade not only did not stop growing, as often happens in most experimental models, but in a few weeks they completely disappeared.

 

In addition, the scientists observed that the elimination of EGFR and c-RAF only produced a lower toxicity already observed in patients treated with EGFR inhibitors, such as gefitinib or afatinib, and that it consists of an "easily controllable" dermatitis. For this reason, they tested this therapy in immunodeficient mice with ten models of pancreatic cancer obtained in patients, proving that nine of these tumors stopped proliferating in the absence of both targets, which is an "essential" preliminary step for the development of future clinical trials.

 

 

Degradation chemistry

 

However, despite these findings, Barbacid has warned that patients who currently suffer from this tumor will not be able to benefit from this progress, since there is at least five or ten years left to apply in the clinical practice, since there are no inhibitors capable of blocking the activity of c-RAF in this type of cancer and, if they did exist, they would be unacceptably toxic.

 

In the next few years they will study what other mutations occur in mice that do not respond to the strategy

 

Now, the researcher has informed that the application of a new technology called 'Degradation Chemistry' ('Degron Chemistry') is being analyzed, which could allow considering the possibility of achieving EGFR inhibition and degradation of c-RAF analogous results. in the clinical research to the experimental ones obtained with the gene elimination of EGFR and c-RAF.

 

 

Precision medicine

 

These results, like those published by the Barbacid group a year ago in which they demonstrated an important therapeutic effect by eliminating c-RAF from lung tumors, are being considered in the pharmaceutical industry to develop selective drugs that can be used against these types of tumors.

 

Finally, the researcher has reported that in the next few years they will study what other mutations are produced in mice that do not respond to the new therapeutic strategy. "Although this is an important discovery, it is important to make clear that in less than five years, and being optimistic, there will be nothing," he said.

 

 

Source: https://www.redaccio...-5-10-anos-6990

 

Edited by Engadin, 10 April 2019 - 12:15 PM.