Alright Cancer in a Nutshell..
I hate that word... Nutshelll... He it goes. One post to resume cancer research...
Think a cell like an electric circuit box. Instead of an electric courant, it's a chemical courant or chain reaction upstream and downstream (like positve and negative courant).
Cancer cell are genetic freaks, it's a genetic mutant basically
3 level to cell.
a) membrane
b) Intra cellular
c) nucleus
Current Approved drugs are a_) membrane attached. they are called antibodies.
i) Strategy one cut off blood to cell, no blood no nutriment - death or slower proliferation; Avastin, Erbitux, Tarceva Iressa
ii) Stimulate auto-immune system so that it attacks and kill cancer cells;
c) Nucleus, solve the problem where it is. Recoding of DNA or interception of RNA messenger
a) HDAC
b) Rnai
Probably the answer but tech is too difficult to master and science is not there yet... maybe in 10 years.à
back to b) Intra-cellular. Pathways are like junction. Switching of a junction will make cancer cell act like normal cell and die like one/ and stop replicating like a normal cell.
This science is going to be next step. The new standard of care. We are talking about first product to get to market in 2011-2012. That's why I am all buzz about it because full valuation will be attained in 2010-11 - right after pivotal trial success.
So, have a circuit map:
https://cbio.mskcc.org/cancergenomics/gbm/pathways/GBM_pathway_20080708.pdf
follow it arrow as it indicates how deep you are in the cell. Map starter is RTK/RAS box
that's the pathway.
Oncologists have a pretty much a definite idea as to what to switch off.
You want those 5 boxes to act like an normal cell.
End result is shown in the bottom of the map.
RTK-RAS are the next logical step to tech improvement
They've been trying for 8-10 years to find the proper agent to switch RAS or RTK we are nearing the end of cycle of R&D.
As you can research other agent, you will need to classify which one is superior. Two variables to consider; side-effect and efficacy.
If you got side-effect, there is nothing to do but to reduce dosage which could affect efficacy.
IF you got efficacy you got to watch to see if Patient does not die along with Cancer cells..
Usually you will get a balance of both.
Best case is when you get no side effect, maximum dosage and high efficacy.
Now you hunt down all known publish agent, I think there about 300-500 agents, in the market research report I purchased.
You classify em. 4601 pops up. Exelixis pipeline pops up and some other weird anti-body compound pops up.
Oncology market is huge - 78 billions growing to 100 billions US.
Now with maintenance therapy, I guess the number 100 B is conservative.
Because of size of market, you don't need to "cure" everyone, just a small enough group is ok.
but you need a way to find em out. New screening tools are now available.
IF you drug has an identified target sub population, a testing tool to identify them and validated research; usually pharma will judge them as "go" decision. If not, it's a "no go".
Summing up.
Extra-cellular is mark cancer cell for auto-immune destruction or stop nutriment flow to it.
Intra-cellular techo is force a cancer cell to act like a normal cell.
Nucleus tech is to make a cancer cell become normal
The lower you get the more complexe, the higher risk of failure.
Extra cellular is the current standard of care. The science is well understood and we see now all the limitation.
In your research you will stumble on, other approach to treat cancer such as Warburg effect or PARP technology....
To see how good your drug is, you check out external research in establish journals such as nature.
For example, M2PK (TLN-232)...
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7184/full/nature06667.html
If natures endorses it is not science fiction, it's genuine science.