Cancer therapy New drug and therapeutic approach

Researchers discover new therapeutic approach and anti-cancer drug

04/04/2014

Recently, researchers from Sweden and Austria achieved a double success in the fight against cancer. While the Swedish team from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm discovered the mechanism of action of an important enzyme and the ability to block it, the Austrian scientists from the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna identified a new anti-cancer drug. The research teams independently came to their conclusions and published their studies in the prestigious journal „Nature“.

Swedish researchers discover metabolic mechanism of cancer cells
For about ten years, research has focused on so-called targeted cancer therapy, which uses gene data to place certain drugs exactly where they are most likely to be found in cancer cells. Although this is effective, but often occur quickly resistance to the active substances, so that they can no longer work. On the one hand, research therefore refers to the identification of new active substances, but on the other hand also to the mechanisms. For example, scientists are trying to identify exactly the metabolic mechanisms that cancer cells need to survive but do not expire in healthy cells. Then drugs could be developed that specifically switch off only the malignant cells.

Thomas Helleday from the Karolinska Institute and his team report in the journal that they have identified such a mechanism. In this case, the activity of the enzyme MTH1, which is vital for all types of cancer and is independent of genetic changes in the type of cancer, plays a decisive role. „In order to accelerate the development of this treatment principle and to be able to start clinical trials on patients as quickly as possible, we work with an open innovation model. Even before the release, we sent MTH1 inhibitors to a number of research groups worldwide“, reports Thomas Helleday from the Karolinska Institute. „Our concept is that cancer cells have a changed metabolism. The enzyme MTH1 protects them from the incorporation of damaged DNA components into their genetic material, thus ensuring the survival of cancer cells. With an MTH1 inhibitor, this enzyme is blocked, so damaged DNA building blocks are incorporated into the genetic material, damage and kill the cells. "The researchers have developed various MTH1 blockers. „The fact that the existing anticancer drugs affect MTH1 shows that the concept actually works. Now that we understand the mechanism, we can develop very selective inhibitors“, so Helleday. Using a mouse model in which the cancer cells were resistant to all common drugs, promising results could be achieved with the MTH1-Bockade.

New drug for cancer treatment discovered by Austrian researchers
An Austrian research team led by the Scientific Director of the Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) at the Vienna General Hospital Vienna, Giulio Superti-Furga, recently discovered an active substance that could act as an MTH1 inhibitor. By means of mass spectrometry, the scientists identified the active substance, which is derived from the already known and registered drug crizotinib, which is used, for example, in the treatment of lung cancer. Due to the high similarity to a previously tested and clinically tested drug, it is possible to start quickly with a test in the clinic on the patient“, explained the first author of the study, Kilian Huber.

„It's a rare stroke of luck that not only have we found a previously unknown sore spot of aggressive cancers, but we've also accidentally identified a chemical that mirrors one of the best new anti-cancer drugs. Double jackpot, "Superti-Furga said.