Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
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Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#2Link to the original Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/nature0...
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#3Its interesting (to me) that some of the funding for this work was provided by the Department of Defense. Is this common for the DoD to fund this type of research?
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#4Link to the original Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/nature0...
Looks like the full article is behind a paywall. :(
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#5Link to the original Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/nature0...
Looks like the full article is behind a paywall. :(
You're right :( The article is pretty remarkable for its breadth. Let me try to give a synopsis:
They synthesize a new biotinylated ketone. They determine that this compound binds to fascin, which has some molecular biological background as something that bundles actin, and some population biological background as something that corresponds with worse survival in breast cancer. They then develop the crystal structure for fascin both with and without their new molecule, and they show that their macroketone binds to the actin binding sites on fascin. They also use electron microscopy to determine that their new molecule indeed appears to disrupt actin bundling by fascin.
They then gave to immune-deficient mice human breast cancer cells. These cells typically metastasize aggressively. They gave the mice a 'placebo' and/or shRNA against fascin and/or their new macroketone. The shRNA and their macroketone successfully cut the metastatic burden by ~50-80%. (shRNA ultimately leads to downregulation of the mRNA of target proteins, so their shRNA should reduce fascin synthesis while their macroketone reduces the function of already-made fascin.)
It's not a silver bullet against metastatic breast cancer, but it's an impressively complete story for one paper. And promising, perhaps, as a therapeutic.
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#6Its interesting (to me) that some of the funding for this work was provided by the Department of Defense. Is this common for the DoD to fund this type of research?
A couple of authors are at Brookhaven; 1% of Brookhaven's funding is from the DoD. But also, yes, the DoD appears to offer plenty of grants funding medicine. Example: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do;jsessionid=pfpnLNPH...
You can find more at grants.gov: http://www.grants.gov/search/agency.do
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#7As another comment mentioned, the full paper is subscriber-only.
Paywalls for scientific research are evil.
Do something people.
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#8As another comment mentioned, the full paper is subscriber-only. Paywalls for scientific research are evil. Do something people. Here: http://209.20.67.195/misc/nature08978.pdf
If anyone is interested in a great presentation about this topic, I really recommend this video[1].
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#9Its interesting (to me) that some of the funding for this work was provided by the Department of Defense. Is this common for the DoD to fund this type of research?
The US DoD health care systems supports approximately 10 million beneficiaries and has a budget of approximately 40 billion dollars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Health_System.
Re: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks
#10Its interesting (to me) that some of the funding for this work was provided by the Department of Defense. Is this common for the DoD to fund this type of research?
The DoD also funds the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, which funds (among other areas) biomedical research being carried out by graduate students.
More about the fellowship: http://ndseg.asee.org/