How to Cure Cancer: The key goal is selective poisoning.Killing just those cells that have certain properties.Examples of what is now available? (I was treated with the underlined ones)
Daunorubicin intercalates between DNA base pairs DNA base analogs get covalently incorporated into DNA Vincristine Binds to tubulin; prevents microtubule formation Taxol Binds to tubulin; stimulates abnormal microtubule polymerization Rituximab A monoclonal antibody against all B-lymphocytes Gleevec Inhibits an over-active tyrosine phosphokinase QUOTE: "A new study finds that a year's supply of Gleevec (imatinib), a leukemia drug, costs about $159 to make [a year's supply, including a profit margin] , but the yearly price tag is $106,322 in the U.S. and $31,867 in the U.K. A generic version costs about $8,000 in Brazil. ...more than a million cancer patients around the world meet criteria for taking the five TKI pills. "Very few of them are being treated now," he says, because the drugs are so expensive. And the implications stretch way beyond these specific cancer drugs. Overall prices for cancer medications have been going up at a fast clip. Dr. Peter B. Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has documented a nearly 100-fold increase in cancer drug prices since 1965 after adjusting for inflation." (QUOTED) http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2015/09/cancer-drug-cost X-Ray irradiation (Minutes per day Mon., Tues., Wed., Thus., Fri. for several weeks)
1) What is the reason for anti-cancer selectivity of anti-DNA and anti-tubulin chemicals?
If cancer cells' have defective checkpoint controls? (Instead of excess growth rates, per se.)
then normal cells would detect damaged DNA and abnormal mitotic spindles, and respond by delaying growth; But cancer cells would continue growth & division, thereby killing themselves. 2) Invent a chemical that becomes poisonous at acidic pH. (using the Warburg Effect) 3) Invent a tyrosine analog that gets converted into a poison when phosphorylated. 4) How to kill cells with an under-active Ras enzyme? (One fifth of human cancer deaths?) During the rest of this lecture, try to invent methods to kill cells with under-active Ras enzymes. ************* Invent a poison (analog to guanosine tri-phosphate) that gets inactivated by normal ras GTPase. (Normal cells protect themselves from such a drug by hydrolyzing).
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