Curing Cancer

Pink day is a huge event at my school. We love thinking up crazy outfits and baking cupcakes. Apart from raising awareness for breast cancer we also generate quite a substantial amount of money that we donate to support the search for a cure for cancer. However, we never hear about how exactly the money is being used. What progress is being made? Well, if you’ve ever wondered about this the information below should be quite enlightening and re-instil that hope within you in the slight chance you’ve lost it.

CANCER TIMELINE

Past – Although chemotherapy seems quite modern, it was first used in its rudimentary form 70 years ago. The patient receives drugs either orally or via injection. The drug kills by poisoning any fast dividing cells. However this results in both the deterioration of cancerous cells as well as healthy cells such as hair and blood. Other forms of treatment include removing the tumour surgically and destroying cancerous using radiation beams.

Now – Latest forms of treatment aim to reduce side effects, they are called ‘targeted therapies.’ They exploit the molecular pathways - steps through which cells acquire their cancerous behaviour- that function in nearly only in cancer cells and thus decrease the collateral damage inflicted by other treatments. However this method isn’t all that it is made out to be as cancer cells are able to bypass pathways. A patient’s life is at the most increased by a couple of months. 

Future –

1. RNA INTERFERENCE:

-        10 years ago it was discovered that short strands of RNA have the ability to turn on and off specific genes. This is relevant as some genes control cancer growth.

-        Problems currently being encountered include the fact that body cells are able to efficiently detect and destroy these strands which they recognise to be viruses.

-        One solution to this involves hiding these RNA chains in lipid nanomolecules.

2. NANOPARTICLES

- These particles are able to improve the effectiveness and decrease the side effects of existing chemotherapeutic drugs.

- Nanoparticles tend to accumulate in tumours. The bloods vessels are particularly leaky here, and so large amounts of the particles are able to ‘escape’.

- Currently some drugs are already being delivered by nanoparticles. Work is now being done on attaching these small drugs particles to antibodies that attack cancer protein.

3. VIROTHERAPY

- The effect of viruses on our body can be summarised as follows: they infect our cells, force these cells to make virus replicas, these replicas are released and go on to infect more cells where the virus multiplies once again.

- This characteristic can be harnessed, except instead of infection, anti-cancer drugs spread.

- 10 viruses have been genetically modified to infect just tumour cells. The most promising results have been seen with a herpes virus that delivers a powerful immune chemical

4. SUPERBUGS

- It has been found that bacteria including as salmonella and E. coli, both of which are found in the human intestine, take shelter from the immune system in the middle of tumours.

- Similar to the concept of virotherapy, these bacteria can be manipulated so that they carry out actions (eg. Secrete toxins) that will treat cancer.

- Unlike viruses, bacteria are easier to mass produce, manipulate and are able to attack stroma (non cancerous cells that surround and make up nearly 80% of a tumour).

5. IMMUNOTHERAPY

- In 1890s New York Surgeon William Coley saw that a patient’s neck cancer disappeared after developing a nasty skin cells. Since then, we have learnt that our immune systems do keep a watch for cancerous cells and it can be used to kill cancer cells that weren’t destroyed in the first place.

a) A ‘cancer vaccine’ is being looked into. First a preventive vaccine was tested. It contained dead cancer cells or cancer protein as well as chemicals that stimulate the immune system. This failed as the immune cells that destroy the cancer were being sent away by signals emitted by the tumours. Now a more therapeutic approach is being explored. One way the immune cells seem to be provoked is by the injection of genes that code for cancer protein into the body. The cells in the immediate location of the vaccine, are forced to produce the protein until it coats the surface of other cells, attracted the attention of these elusive immune cells. This falls under gene therapy.

b) Another method involves the extraction of immune cells from a cancer a sufferer, manipulating them (eg. ‘culturing them with cancer proteins’) and then reintroducing them to that patients body. This process however is highly individualistic and specific and therefore, unsurprisingly, extremely expensive.

c) T-cells (lymphocytes) that are the actual cancer assassins have also been subjected to cancer protein, then cultured and re-injected into patients. More complexly, attempts are being made at genetically engineering T-cells to attack cancer. This can be achieved by introducing a gene that codes for a receptor that recognises cancer protein. Once again, there is the combination of gene and immunotherapy.

After all this, I find the future to be quite bright. I’m personally intrigued to see how the gene therapy pans out. What are your thoughts? What do you think might be the cure?

- New Scientist (13/10/12 Surprise Theory of Everything Issue)