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A step past chemotherapy.(patients are beginning to benefit from targeted drugs that home in on the molecular characteristics of cancer cells, leaving healthy tissue relatively unscathed)
Cancer researchers are a stubborn lot. They know the numbers: more than 16,000 people die from cancer every day. They know the enemy: an insidious disease that ravages virtually every organ in the body. And they know that they desperately need new treatments so that patients like Amelia Gilardi, 72, become the norm, not the exception. In 1998, Gilardi was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and told she had no more than three years to live. After traditional chemotherapy failed, Gilardi enrolled in a clinical trial of a then experimental drug called Velcade. Eight months later she was in remission. "It was wonderful that there was something else out there," she says.
For decades, doctors have relied on conventional chemotherapy to poison cancer cells. The treatment has saved many lives, but because chemo attacks healthy cells, too, patients suffer a slew of toxic side effects. And they often become resistant to treatment or die from complications. Today, thanks to an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how cancer works, patients are beginning to benefit from a revolution in oncology: targeted drugs that home in on the molecular characteristics of cancer cells, leaving healthy tissue relatively unscathed. There are still no miracle cures, but there is plenty of cautious enthusiasm. "These are small incremental gains," says Dr. David H. Johnson of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, "but each one is phenomenal."
Cancer was long thought of as one disease expressed in different parts of the body, but researchers are now teasing apart the myriad genes and proteins that differentiate cancer cells, not just from healthy cells, but from each other. Two breast-cancer tumors may look identical under the microscope, but may turn on, or "express," different genes. The result: two tumors behaving in dissimilar ways--and susceptible to ...
- AVI BioPharma Scientists Demonstrate NEUGENE Antisense Agents Effective at...
- Press release article from: Business Wire December 14, 2001 700+ words
...cell growth of refractory cancer cells in prostate cancer, the...effective therapy for refractory cancer cells," stated AVI senior scientist...c-myc in Human Prostate Cancer Cells." The study was partially...immunotherapy and gene-targeted drugs. Its lead clinical ...
- Steroid-linked taxol analogues cytotoxic to cancer cells in vitro.
- Newspaper article from: Biotech Week May 5, 2004 700+ words
...cytotoxic to breast and ovarian cancer cells in vitro. "The female steroid...receptor (ER) positive breast cancer cells. Estradiol-taxol conjugates...taxol analogues as potential targeted drugs for prostate and breast cancer...
- After Two Decades, New Hope For Drugs That Target Cancer; Technology Keeps...
- Magazine article from: Investor's Business Daily September 12, 2005 700+ words
...do just that. These and other targeted drugs use various mechanisms to focus...treatment. None is a cure. Some targeted drugs are made from chemicals. Others...trying to block growth signals to cancer cells. Other treatments try to cut...
- UCLA Researchers Discover Genes Linked to Lymphoma, Opening Way for New...
- Press release article from: PR Newswire January 30, 2007 700+ words
...in which they identified frequent genetic abnormalities in cancer cells from NHL patients -- namely defects in the TCL1 gene...journal Oncogene, is likely to help in the development of new targeted drugs for NHL patients. The researchers are working to determine...
- Carigent Therapeutics Completes Series A Financing; Advancing Nanotechnology...
- Press release article from: PR Newswire December 11, 2007 700+ words
...dispatch an increased dose of the encapsulated drug in a controlled fashion to the site of the tumor or within individual cancer cells, and the carrier degrades over time. The method thus leaves healthy tissues unharmed and minimizes systemic side effects...
- Nanotechnology takes medical intervention to a new level; nanomedicine strives...
- Magazine article from: R & D Sidawi, Danielle October 1, 2004 700+ words
...want to treat a disease like cancer to make cancer cells turn off and die or treat a genetic disorder...that Baker's group is studying are not only targeted drugs that deliver to cancer cells, but also contain imaging agents. Thus...
- Big Cancer Meeting To Showcase Survival; OSI Pharm, Genentech to quantify...
- Magazine article from: Investor's Business Daily June 4, 2004 700+ words
Byline: GLORIA LAU The buzz in cancer is about targeted drugs that attack deadly cancer cells but spare healthy cells. This means direct treatment and fewer side effects. But less than 10 of these drugs have won regulatory...
- Biotech Funds, CNNfn.
- News wire article from: Analyst Wire June 7, 2004 700+ words
...blocking a protein that helps cancer cells grow and spread. The study...These types of drugs are targeted drugs. They attack just the cancer cells unlike chemotherapy and...which can`t tell apart cancer cells from normal cells, therefore...
- New York Stock Exchange Update, CNNfn.
- News wire article from: Finance Wire June 7, 2004 700+ words
...blocking a protein that helps cancer cells grow and spread. The study...re talking about are targeted drugs. They attack just the cancer cells and that`s what separates...it blocks proteins that cancer cells need to grow. Patients...
- Biotech Sect. Update, CNNfn.
- News wire article from: The America's Intelligence Wire June 7, 2004 700+ words
...Some of these drugs are targeted drugs. They attack just the cancer cells. Chemotherapy and radiation...contrast can`t tell apart cancer cells from healthy cells so they...blocking a protein that helps cancer cells grow and spread. Bristol...
