Cancer with well-known drugs to treat?

U.S. scientists tested a countless medication in the laboratory for their effect against hundreds of cancer cell lines. In this way, you have tracked down some of the substances, the cancer cells kill. You have not discovered metabolic pathways, of which we knew previously that they play in cancer diseases.

The researchers analyzed at 578 human cancer cell lines the effect of the several thousands of drugs that are already approved or which are known that they are suitable for use in humans. They found almost 50, of which no one knew before, that they can prevent cancer cells to Grow, including drugs for Diabetes, infections, alcoholism, Arthritis in dogs, or cholesterol-lowering drug. "We thought we’d be lucky if we would find only a single compound with cancer fighting properties, and we were surprised to finden&quot so many;, Todd Golub, chief scientific officer and Director of the cancer program at Dana-Farber and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School said.

Drugs against Diabetes, Entzündungen, or osteoarthritis töten cancer cells

Some of the Compounds killed cancer cells in an unexpected way: While most existing cancer drugs block certain metabolic pathways, had to share some of the activating or stabilized interactions between Cell components. Unknown targets were discovered in this way, for example, an inflammation of the killed-inflammatory drug for the treatment of osteoarthritis in dogs, cancer cells by a previously unknown target, which is involved in resistance to chemotherapeutic agents.

New approach für therapy?

These discoveries makes a cell-based approach, in which the Survival of the cells is measured. In order to ensure not millions of Tests are required to be tested in one approach, at the same time, several cell lines have been genetically selected. Since you know the properties of the cell lines is also very good, you can make predictions, against which other cell lines, a drug with great probability will also be effective. In this way you could use to identify patients that most likely benefit from certain medicines.

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