Posts tagged ‘Cancer Research’
At ASCO this year, there was a lot of interest in BRAF mutated melanoma, with data being presented in the plenary session on vemurafenib (PLX4032) and ipilimumab.
However, as Sally Church on Pharma Strategy Blog points out, 40% of all new cancer cases are due to non-melanoma skin cancer, with over one million diagnoses each year in the US.
Sally discusses research published in the AACR journal Cancer Research by Mei Ming and colleagues from the University of Chicago on how the tumor suppressor gene phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted from chromosome ten (PTEN) regulates UVB-induced DNA damage.
The research shows that PTEN has a key role to play in human skin cancer formation and progression with low levels of PTEN associated with slower rates of DNA repair after UVB radiation damage.
As Sally notes on her blog, “a greater understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning non-melanoma skin cancer potentially means that chemoprevention strategies can be developed down the road.”
You can read more about the role PTEN plays in non-melanoma skin cancer on Pharma Strategy Blog.
Nanotechnology is expected to provide major breakthroughs in how drugs cross the blood-brain barrier and reach into tumors. That promise is already starting to be seen.
Research by Julia Ljubimova and her team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was recently published in the AACR journal, Cancer Research. They showed that biodegradable nanoparticles containing trastuzumab (herceptin), dramatically reduced HER2/neu protein activity in mice containing human HER2/neu positive breast tumors.
As Sally Church in her thoughtful post about this research on Pharma Strategy Blog, states, “it will be most interesting to see if this idea is developed clinically in human trials and whether the results will be reproducible or not.”
Nanotechnology and the development of nanoparticles that deliver drugs more effectively and with less toxicity, is an area that all new products professionals should be watching.
Source Prescott Pym via Flickr
To answer that fascinating question you will have to read Sally Church’s post on Pharma Strategy Blog.
Sally, a former junior England and Kent County ladies cricketer knows her sport. Since coming to America she has embraced NFL football, and is an avid fantasy player.
Sally discusses the current cricket world cup, and whether playing cricket can be used as a metaphor for cancer drug development, notwithstanding the current England failure of losing to Ireland!
What does the future hold for oncology drug development? Sally makes five predictions that can be read here.