New Drug Developed To Target And Destroy Tumor Cells Successful In Mouse Model Of Pancreatic Cancer

Main Category: Pancreatic Cancer
Article Date: 21 Oct 2012 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
New Drug Developed To Target And Destroy Tumor Cells Successful In Mouse Model Of Pancreatic Cancer

A new drug created at the University of Minnesota may hold the answer to defeating pancreatic cancer, according to results published in the prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine.

The study is based on successful outcomes in a mouse model - results researchers expect to carry over to human patients when the drug potentially begins human trials in 2013.

The drug, Minnelide, is a type of injectable chemotherapy designed to target tumor cells. The drug works by inhibiting a heat shock protein, HSP 70, which has been proven to aid the growth of tumor cells. By stopping HSP 70 from working, Minnelide disperses the cells integral to the tumor's growth and the cancer disintegrates.

The drug is based on patented technology designed in the labs of Ashok Saluja, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of research in the University of Minnesota Medical School's Department of Surgery, Selwyn Vickers, M.D., chairman of the Department of Surgery, and Gunda Georg, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development in the College of Pharmacy. Bruce Blazar, M.D., director of the Center for Translational Medicine, also partnered on this project.

Pancreatic cancer is the most lethal of all cancers. This year alone, more than 44,000 Americans will be diagnosed with the disease and the median survival time following a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is just six months.

"A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is incredibly grim. There is no good way to treat or cure this particular type of cancer," said Saluja, who holds the Eugene C. and Gail V. Sit Chair in Pancreatic and Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, "and the best options currently available offer just six weeks of added survival. It is far from tackling the real problem which is that pancreatic cancer tumor cells make survival proteins, rendering them increasingly difficult to defeat."

In 2007, Saluja and his collaborators discovered pancreatic cancer cells have too much HSP 70, which protects cells from dying. Because of this excess protein, pancreatic cancer cells are difficult to target with drugs, meaning the logical next step in fighting the cancer was to determine how to inhibit HSP 70 in these tumor cells.

Saluja found that triptolide, a compound derived from plants in China, worked to halt the development of HSP 70 in tumor cells, but because triptolide is not water soluble, it was still difficult to administer to patients. The Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development at the University of Minnesota, in collaboration with the Saluja lab, worked to make triptolide water soluble. They named their drug Minnelide as a nod to the compound from which it was derived, triptolide, and its discovery location, the University of Minnesota.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our pancreatic cancer section for the latest news on this subject.
The University of Minnesota holds the patent on the modifying factors that create Minnelide from triptolide. It has been licensed to Minneamrita Therapeutics LLC for production.

Funding for this research was provided by NIH grants R01CA124723 and R01 CA170496, as well as the Katherine and Robert Goodale Foundation and the Hirshberg Foundation.

University of Minnesota Academic Health Center

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Quality of life once the cancer may depend on the type of Tumor

Tuesday, October 30 HealthDay News)-the quality of life of cancer survivors may vary depending on the type of cancer, and millions of United States cancer survivors have a lower quality than normal life, a new study finds.

The researchers looked at more than 1,800 survivors of cancer in adults and more than 24,000 adults without a history of cancer and found that the survivors of cancers of prostate, breast and melanoma a mental - and Fisica-salud - quality of life similar to those who never had cancer.

Survivors of cervical, blood and colorectal cancer as well as cancer survivors with a survival rate of five years of less than 25 per cent (such as liver, lung and pancreatic cancer), however, had worse Fisica-salud - quality of life.

And the survivors of cervical cancer and cancer with a five-year survival rate low also had poorer mental-health-quality of life, according to the study, which was published in the October 30 in the journal Epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention of cancer.

The researchers found that 25 percent of cancer survivors had lower normal Fisica-salud - quality of life, and 10 percent lower than normal mental health quality of life-related. In total, about 3.3 million United States cancer survivors have a physical life quality of below average and nearly 1.4 million have one below the average mental quality of life, the researchers estimated.

"It is very concerning there are a significant number of cancer survivors that years of poor physical or mental health after cancer experience", study author Kathryn Weaver, an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said in a press release from the journal.

"Our results serve as a basis so that in five to 10 years, we can evaluate whether current approaches to improve the health and well-being of cancer survivors are having a positive effect," he said. "I also hope our data will be calling attention to the needs of survivors of cancer, especially those with cervical, blood and less common cancers - and the importance of the supervision of these individuals, even long after his diagnosis of cancer."

More information

The national United States cancer Institute has more about life after cancer treatment.

Source: Cancer Epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention, press release, 30 October 2012

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