Breakthrough New drug kills cancer cells without side effects

New drug forces cancer cells to suicide

A new and revolutionary drug kills cancer cells without harming healthy cells. In the first tests on people with malignant lymph node tumors, the patients showed no side effects after the treatment. This is reported by an English research team in a recent study.

Researchers at Imperial College London made a breakthrough in cancer research. What scientists have tried unsuccessfully for over thirty years, succeeded the London team. They successfully developed and tested a drug for aggressive blood cancer that kills cancer cells but spares healthy cells. The study results have recently been published in the journal "The British Journal of Haematology".

According to Imperial College London, a new drug will be able to force cancer cells to self-destruct. Healthy cells remain unmolested. So there are no side effects during the treatment. (Image: psdesign1 / fotolia.com)

Encouraging results

"Although the results of this pilot study need to be interpreted with caution at such an early stage, they are very encouraging," says lead author Dr. Holger Auner together. So far, the drug has only been tested in three patients suffering from a multiple myeloma, also called plasmocytoma or Kahler's disease. This aggressive form of blood cancer often breaks out in several places at the same time. Treatment with existing methods is extremely difficult, explain the Imperial physicians.

Small but promising

In the small clinical study of the English research team, the new drug was tested in three patients. The researchers were able to provide the first clinical evidence that the drug kills targeted myeloma cells in the bone marrow, while the healthy tissue of the patient remains untouched. "Our findings indicate that this drug may work for some patients with this aggressive form of cancer," research director Professor Guido Franzoso said in a press release on the study's findings.

Kill cancer cells without side effects

"This is the first clinical evidence that our drug specifically targets cancer cells in patients while showing no signs of toxicity," the professor said. Myeloma typically occurs in older adults. There are about 5,500 cases of this kind in Britain every year. For most patients, the cancer can not be cured.

Previous therapies have often been unsuccessful

"We can control the disease in most cases over several years using previous methods, but in the end we almost always have no treatment options," says Dr. Holger Auner. The pharmaceutical industry has been trying to develop a blood cancer drug over the last 30 years, but has had little success despite huge investments. Often, the medications have failed due to serious unwanted side effects.

Force the cancer cell to commit suicide

The team around Professor Franzoso tried a new approach. The scientists took advantage of a natural process known as apoptosis. This is a self-destructive mechanism within certain cells. However, as long as a protein called GADD45b and an enzyme called MKK7 are linked, the signal for suicide is suppressed. The new active ingredient starts at this point and blocks the connection between the protein and the enzyme in the cancer cells. The result: the cancer cell destroys itself.

Healthy cells are not affected

"We have developed a drug that can block this signaling mechanism in cancers, but not in normal cells," concludes Professor Franzoso. This has also been shown in laboratory tests in mice. Unlike existing drugs, there was no toxicity and no detectable side effects.

Struck in two out of three patients

In human clinical trials, the drug has been shown to affect two out of three patients. After 28 days of treatment, cell death mechanisms in cancer cells were activated in two patients, and the progression of the disease was halted. In the third patient, however, the drug showed no effect. The researchers suspect a genetic background for the non-action.

When will the drug be used?

"We hope to conduct larger studies in the future to see if the drug can be used in the clinic for the benefit of multiple myeloma patients, but effective new drug treatment will take several years," said Professor Franzoso. (Vb)