Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

b>Is Your Ability to Buy Dietary Supplements, Herbal Preparations, and Tonics in Jeopardy in the USA?
When the DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health Education Act) was passed by the USA Congress in 1994 it was a boon to all of us consumers. Finally, we all could buy herbals that had long histories of safe and effective use throughout the world. Before...

Nutritional Supplements: The Amazing Vitamin C
Body The real facts about Vitamin C may surprise you. First of all what is Vitamin C? Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin. Unlike the oil soluble vitamins such as A and E, Vitamin C cannot be stored by your body. Since Vitamin C is not stored by...

One in seven Americans suffered it. Appendicitis. What is it? Part 2
Next they try to image what is going on in your belly. An abdominal x-ray may detect the fecalith as the cause of appendicitis (5%). Free air due to perforation can might be seen on the plain film. A barium enema may be used. It is an x-ray test...

Raising a Whole Food Child in a Processed Food World
Next Page>> By Colleen Huber, Naturopathyworks During at least some of their childhood, you've probably watched your son or daughter notice "the grass is definitely greener elsewhere." One of the biggest challenges to...

"The Two Sides of Medicine"
Throughout time there have always been two opposing points of view as to how to maintain good health, or how to regain it after having lost it. This conflict has continued since ancient times ... and no doubt will continue well into the future. ...

 
Self-destroying cancer cells: a major breakthrough for medical research

Although cancer treatments have improved significantly over recent years, the search for the holy grail --a really effective cure -- remains elusive. Even the much improved treatments in common use today carry risks. As Dr Claus Jacob of the University of Exeter explains, 'cancer therapy has long been based on highly toxic substances that randomly kill healthy and sick cells alike.'

Now, however, Dr Jacob and Dr Gutowski of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, with support from the Peninsula Medical School, are working on a new approach that causes cancer cells to self-destroy: effectively to commit suicide. In a project that started in 2000 (first with funding from the UK Research Council funding, then from the Leverhulme Trust and involvement of Exeter Antioxidant Therapeutics Ltd) the research has led to the discovery of catalysts that mimic the activity of a certain human enzyme (glutathione peroxidase). They work by setting off reactions in the cancer cells causing them to kill themselves. A crucial benefit of this approach is that the drugs target only diseased cells, leaving healthy ones intact. This means that any therapy based on this approach should avoid many of the risks and side effects associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The treatment is also highly efficient because, as Dr Jacob says, 'catalysts are not consumed during their activity but are recycled over and over again. This means that only minute quantities of biocatalyst are needed to kill cancer cells.'

Dr Jacob goes on to explain that the principle to make cancer cells kill themselves 'is based on the fact that catalysts are not only effective, but also highly selective:
'We knew from previous research (by us and others) that cancer cells have their own "biochemical signature" and that we could design catalysts that recognise this signature and use it to kill cells. We have also looked at natural human defence systems - and they use a similar catalytic chemistry.'

Of course many different types of cancers exist and the crucial question many will ask is what kinds of cancers could be treated by this method in the future? At this stage in the research the catalysts have been shown to work with cancer cells containing elevated concentrations of so-called 'reactive species'. Cancers that are known to have these species are human prostate and kidney cancer and certain lung carcinomas.


The content of reactive species in several other kinds of cancer cells is still not fully determined.

As existing cancer treatments are associated with risks to healthy cells as well as the cancerous ones, recent research worldwide has been concentrating on the design of drugs that specifically target cancer cells and leave healthy cells alone. Such treatments lower the side effects of the drugs significantly, but unfortunately not completely. 'Our approach,' says Dr Jacob, 'uses catalysts to achieve this goal. Catalysts are very different from "one shot" conventional drugs since they facilitate reactions of species already present within the cancer cell and themselves are therefore recycled. This means they are active in very small
concentrations. Since they "need" the cancer cell's reactive species for activity, they are only active in cancer cells but not in normal cells.'

The compounds have been developed and synthesised at Exeter University''s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and tested in cancer cells at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the research is now entering its critical phase. The team has just started with animal tests and hopes to proceed to clinical trials once the compounds have shown activity in the animal models. They have teamed up with Exeter Antioxidant Therapeutics Ltd. and this company is providing patent protection and is negotiating with larger pharmaceutical companies to develop and test these catalysts further. Since this approach is based on a new method rather than a single new compound, it has considerable potential for the development of a range of new catalysts with anticancer potential.

Although the research team stresses that treatment based on this approach is still many years off, their findings open up valuable new directions in the field of anti-cancer research.

For further information, please contact:
Claus Jacob
University of Exeter
C.Jacob@exeter.ac.uk

Note about Dr Jacob:
Dr Claus Jacob moved to Exeter from Harvard Medical School in 1999 and has worked for several years at the Chemistry/Medicine interface. He has published numerous research papers on the importance of oxidative stress
in health and disease.


About the Author

Brenda is a British writer and editor living in France. Find out more about her work at her web site: www.worldsapartreview.com.

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com