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Scientists Transform Deadly Plant Into Cancer Killing Smart Bomb

Scientists Transform Deadly Plant Into Cancer Killing Smart Bomb

By Kristen Philipkoski
Feb 2, 2012 4:40 PM

The ancient Greeks called the thapsia garganica plant “deadly carrot,” because their camels would eat it and quickly die. The Roman emperor Nero mixed it with frankincense to treat bruises. Until the early 20th century it was used in a plaster to treat rheumatism—the side effects, however, were barely worth the cure.

But what happens when you deploy thaspia on a molecular level? You get a teeny tiny, very precise, cancer-killing grenade. It’s an entirely new approach that has its creators throwing around the word “cure.”

Thapsigargin, the active ingredient in the thapsia plant, does a fantastic job of killing tumor cells by destroying their calcium balance. But it will do that to any cell that crosses its path. So Genspera, a biotech company in San Antonio, Texas, found a way to strictly guide and control the drug through the bloodstream until it finds its target.

“That’s why we came up with the concept of producing a molecular grenade, so it activates only in the tumor,” said Craig Dionne, GenSpera’s president, CEO and director.

That’s no easy task. One of the reasons many cancer drugs cause such terrible side effects is because they leak into the bloodstream on their way to the tumor. The bone marrow is ravaged, hair falls out, and the liver and cardiovascular system can be damaged.

“We have none of that nonsense,” Dionne says.

The key to the cancer grenade’s precise explosive effect is its “pin,” a 5-amino-acid-long peptide that can be pulled only by an enzyme, called PSMA, found on the surface of blood vessels that feed cancer cells. Only when the peptide comes into contact with PMSA will it release the thapsigargin.
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Other chemotherapy drugs slow the growth of cancer, and doctors consider them a success if they prolong a patient’s life for just a few months.

“We’re not trying to slow the growth,” Dionne told me. “We’re dropping a neutron bomb in the neighborhood. Everything in the neighborhood dies and goes away.”

Traditional chemotherapy is also designed to kill fast-growing cells, i.e. cells that are dividing out of control like cancer tumor cells do. The problem is that cancer stem cells, which continuously give rise to new tumors, actually divide very slowly, which can lead to a relapse. In animal studies, Genspera’s drug killed all the cancer cells plus the stem cells, leaving nothing behind that could seed more cancer growth—hence the talk of a cure.

“It looks like what we’ve seen in animals will be replicated in humans—that’s what we expect to see,” Dionne said.

Not to get too overly optimistic: the drug is in the earliest phase of FDA clinical trials. So far, researchers are excited and hopeful because they’ve cranked up the dosage more than they ever thought possible, and still have not seen side-effects in patients. Twenty-six patients with various types of late-stage “solid tumor” cancer have participated in the trial and researchers will soon add 18 more. After that they hope to move on to the second phase of trials (FDA clinical trials usually include three phases: the first for safety, the second for safety and efficacy, and the final one to confirm safety and efficacy.)

Prostate cancer cells also grow slowly, so they can escape cancer treatments focused on killing fast-growing cells. Genspera’s next drug, which will be based on the same grenade technology, will target that disease. Also in the queue are brain and stomach cancer. Here’s hoping they bomb the crap out of all of them.

Image: Luigi Rignanese

http://gizmodo.com/5881640/scientists-transform-deadly-plant-into-cancer-killing-smart-bomb

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Scientists Use Spectroscopy to Study Black Holes, Stars, and Now Cervixes

Scientists Use Spectroscopy to Study Black Holes, Stars, and Now Cervixes

Scientists use spectroscopy to examine the make-up of celestial objects. Now, they’re taking the technology in a decidedly different direction and using it to detect cervical cancer.

Over the past decade, Guided Therapeutics has identified cellular markers specific to cervical cancer cells, which their new device identifies by shining a spectrum of light on the tissue. Like spectroscopy for planets and stars, the company’s LuViva Advanced Cervical Scan shines light on the object of interest, then analyzes how that light is reflected. The technique is non-invasive and doesn’t require tissue samples or lab tests, which is reason to celebrate for anyone who’s had a Pap-smear or cervical biopsy.

“Every molecule has a spectral fingerprint. If you hit it with a specific wavelength of light any tissue will reveal its nature and tell you something about itself,” Mark Faupel, CEO of Guided Therapeutics, told me during a phone interview. “We’ve adapted this technology used by NASA to identify whether there’s life on other planets to detect cancer cells in tissue in vivo (i.e. in a live person).”

In studies looking at 1,600 cervixes, the company’s scientists found that the device detected 90 percent of cervical cancers an average of two years earlier than Pap smears, the technique currently used by doctors for early diagnosis. Pap smears are a good way to detect cervical cancer early but they also lead to a lot of false positives—only 20 percent of patients who have abnormal Paps actually require treatment. That’s an 80 percent false positive rate. The test also completely misses two-thirds of pre-cancerous cells.

False positive or not, an abnormal Pap smear typically leads to a colposcopy, which is basically a quick but sometimes painful scrape of the cervix’s surface cells to obtain a biopsy.

Cervical cancer, which is usually caused by human papilloma virus, is a major killer of women, especially in developing countries where women have less access to Pap smears. In the United States where Pap smears are routine, most women catch pre-cancerous cells early enough that it’s 100 percent treatable by removing the abnormal cells with cryosurgery or laser therapy. But in places where Pap tests are not routine and cervical cancer often goes undetected until it has spread, LuViva could save lives. The device will be relatively inexpensive at about $20,000, so Faupel hopes smaller clinics will be able to afford one.

“We wanted to make it accessible to use on a reservation for Native Americans or rural clinics in developing countries,” he says. “This can be used for the underserved population, not just afforded by large industrial hospital complexes.”

The National Cancer Institute has granted Guided Therapeutics $6 million to develop the technology, and the company hopes to receive final FDA approval to market the device sometime this month.

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Scientists Use Spectroscopy to Study Black Holes, Stars, and Now Cervixes

Scientists use spectroscopy to examine the make-up of celestial objects. Now, they’re taking the technology in a decidedly different direction and using it to detect cervical cancer.

Over the past decade, Guided Therapeutics has identified cellular markers specific to cervical cancer cells, which their new device identifies by shining a spectrum of light on the tissue. Like spectroscopy for planets and stars, the company’s LuViva Advanced Cervical Scan shines light on the object of interest, then analyzes how that light is reflected. The technique is non-invasive and doesn’t require tissue samples or lab tests, which is reason to celebrate for anyone who’s had a Pap-smear or cervical biopsy.

“Every molecule has a spectral fingerprint. If you hit it with a specific wavelength of light any tissue will reveal its nature and tell you something about itself,” Mark Faupel, CEO of Guided Therapeutics, told me during a phone interview. “We’ve adapted this technology used by NASA to identify whether there’s life on other planets to detect cancer cells in tissue in vivo (i.e. in a live person).”

In studies looking at 1,600 cervixes, the company’s scientists found that the device detected 90 percent of cervical cancers an average of two years earlier than Pap smears, the technique currently used by doctors for early diagnosis. Pap smears are a good way to detect cervical cancer early but they also lead to a lot of false positives—only 20 percent of patients who have abnormal Paps actually require treatment. That’s an 80 percent false positive rate. The test also completely misses two-thirds of pre-cancerous cells.

False positive or not, an abnormal Pap smear typically leads to a colposcopy, which is basically a quick but sometimes painful scrape of the cervix’s surface cells to obtain a biopsy.

Cervical cancer, which is usually caused by human papilloma virus, is a major killer of women, especially in developing countries where women have less access to Pap smears. In the United States where Pap smears are routine, most women catch pre-cancerous cells early enough that it’s 100 percent treatable by removing the abnormal cells with cryosurgery or laser therapy. But in places where Pap tests are not routine and cervical cancer often goes undetected until it has spread, LuViva could save lives. The device will be relatively inexpensive at about $20,000, so Faupel hopes smaller clinics will be able to afford one.

“We wanted to make it accessible to use on a reservation for Native Americans or rural clinics in developing countries,” he says. “This can be used for the underserved population, not just afforded by large industrial hospital complexes.”

The National Cancer Institute has granted Guided Therapeutics $6 million to develop the technology, and the company hopes to receive final FDA approval to market the device sometime this month.

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The Pill That Could Cure Depression by Growing Your Brain

http://gizmodo.com/5874433/the-pill-that-could-cure-depression-by-growing-your-brain

Kristen Philipkoski:  January 9, 2012

If you are depressed, or schizophrenic or have Alzheimer’s, scientists say you probably have a shrunken hippocampus. The good news: a drug that just entered human trials promises to re-grow that part of the brain.

It’s an entirely new approach to treating clinical depression, which is the first of several diseases scientists at biotech company Neuralstem are hoping to address with their experimental oral drug. Most antidepressants work on brain chemistry, tweaking levels of neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. This is the first drug that aims to re-grow patients’ atrophied brains.

Dr. Karl Johe, Neuralstem’s CEO, believes that depression is a three-headed beast that affects neurotransmitter levels, neurons, and hippocampus size. And he says their new drug could address all three. He also hopes the drug will reverse the disease to the point that patients could permanently go off the drug.

“If we can show by MRI that we’ve increased hippocampus volume and at the same time reversed depression symptoms for six months after patients have stopped taking the drug, then we’ll have a cure.”
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That a too-small hippocampus causes depression and other diseases is still technically a theory in humans (though it’s been demonstrated in rats and chimps). So if the drug grows hippocampus volume and thereby treats depression, we’ll not only have a new treatment, but the study results would be proof that a shriveled hippocampus is at least in part the culprit.

The scientists showed first that the drug worked in the lab: They started with dishes of neural stem cells and added several compounds they thought might instigate growth. Seven showed promise, but they could only afford to develop one, so they chose NSI-189. They then tested it in mice; after taking the drug, the rodents had larger hippocampi.

Thirty-five healthy humans have now taken the drug with no ill effects, so the FDA gave the company the OK to start testing in depressed patients. They’ll give the pill to 18 volunteers (six will get a placebo) in three groups, each receiving a progressively larger dose, each over 28 days. They expect this phase, which is mainly to make sure the drugs is safe, to take about six months. If all goes well they hope to proceed to phase two clinical trials later this year, which will test to determine whether the drug is both safe and effective. (After that, a final phase three trial to confirm safety and efficacy will remain before the company can market the drug.)

I couldn’t help thinking about those healthy test subjects who took the drug. Will they get super brain powers? The healthy mice that received the drug did grow extra large hippocampi, the seahorse-shaped part of the brain involved with both short and longterm memory and spatial navigation. Johe isn’t ruling out the possibility of souped-up brains:

“It’s an exciting possibility and we’ll definitely be looking out for it.”

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* A Miracle Drug Keeps This 70-Year-Old Cancer Patient Running Marathons

Don Still Going

http://gizmodo.com/5867859/a-miracle-drug-keeps-this-70+year+old-cance

Don Wright was diagnosed with myeloma—cancer in his blood cells and bone marrow—two weeks after running his first marathon. His doctor gave him a five-year survival estimate. Eight years later he has run 60 26.2-mile races in 41 states and takes just one pill per day to keep his cancer at bay.

“I feel wonderful,” Wright says. He and his family run the races together: his wife and daughter run half marathons while he does the whole shebang. His only complaint is a touch of runner’s knee every now and then.

Wright’s miracle drug is called pomalidomide, and it’s still in clinical trials. It’s one of several emerging therapies over the past decade that have doctors stunned and cautiously ecstatic about their effectiveness. Other drugs in this group include thalidomide (infamous for causing birth defects in the 60s) and lenalidomide, which are called immunomodulating agents. While not a cure, they could make treating cancer as relatively manageable as taking insulin for diabetes or a statin for high cholesterol.

Dr. Brian Durie, the co-founder and chairman of the International Myeloma Foundation, is amazed by Wright’s running stamina. “It’s mind boggling, for God’s sake. It’s amazing.”

The key, he says, is to stay on the treatment, just like taking insulin regularly to keep diabetes at bay. It’s a major and welcome shift from the comparatively shorter but heavy-hitting and damaging doses of chemotherapy and radiation that were the baseline treatments for myeloma 10 years ago. Most patients will take a lifetime of taking one pill per day over months of hair loss and severe nausea.

It helps in burning calories and improves the blood flow to the organ. levitra pills from canada slovak-republic.org for sale viagra In the majority of cases, the problem is due to erectile dysfunction. There are studies that show that cialis overnight far lesser side effects than its counterparts, lasts longer and is not proper. The increasing stress and improper diet causes discount generic cialis to produce some hormonal disorders in the body like diabetic problems. “These molecules are multifunctional,” Dr. Durie says. “They shut down pathways in the cancer cells and the micro-environment in the bone marrow.”

Nowadays, most newly-diagnosed patients try one of these novel drugs since they work so well for some people. The problem is, the treatments are unpredictable and work differently for everyone. That’s why Dr. Durie and his colleagues are taking samples of patients’ bone marrow and using genetic profiling to determine who will respond best to which drug.

First we sequence the whole genome, then we break it up into smaller sequences about 200 nucleotides long. Then you sequence those, and you end up with literally millions of these little pieces. You line those up and compare the malignant cells with the normal cells.

By comparing these super-detailed sequences of DNA, Durie hopes to one day determine who will respond best to each drug on the list of novel treatments for myeloma.

Meanwhile, Wright hopes to keep taking pomalidomide for as long as it keeps working for him. At 70, he’s beginning to slow down, but only slightly. His goal is to run a marathon in every state—he’ll rack up one more this weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He has already won multiple marathons in his age group, his fastest race being 3:36. That’s twice as fast as my fastest marathon, which I ran when I was half Wright’s age. Clearly he loves running more than I ever did:

“I just cruise,” he says. “I coast.”

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Could This Be the End of Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

Could This Be the End of Embryonic Stem Cell Research?

By Kristen Philipkoski

Nov 15, 2011 3:40 PM

A biotech company that after much turmoil and huge expense launched the first human embryonic stem cell clinical trial in the United States is getting out of the stem cell business.

Geron led the charge to push the U.S. government and society at large to allow use of embryonic stem cells. Scientists believed they could treat myriad diseases because of their ability to become any cell in the human body. But the company has accumulated losses of almost $300 million over the past four years and has halted its stem cell efforts. With few scientists pursuing stem cell research of the embryonic variety, many are wondering if commercial embryonic stem cell research will soon take its final breath.

The cells are controversial because human embryos are destroyed to obtain them. But the company persevered amidst years of public outcry and political punditry and in October 2011 launched the first-ever FDA-approved human trial to treat acute spinal cord injuries. Just four of the 10 approved patients have been treated with Geron’s cells, and now it looks like the other six won’t have their chance. A recently-launched Swiss trial run by Geron will also presumably be halted. The company has laid off 34 percent of its staff and will focus now on cancer treatments. Many patients who held out hope for a paralysis cure will be sorely disappointed.

Advanced Cell Technology is one of the only companies (Stem Cells is another) still using embryonic stem cells. It has human clinical trials active in macular dystrophy and macular degeneration.
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But other companies, like Neuralstem, are poised to pick up the slack using a different and less controversial type of stem cell. Neuralstem uses neural rather than embryonic stem cells, and has already seen remarkable success treating ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig’s disease) patients, which I wrote about here. Neural stem cells are not completely free of controversy: they are taken from a voluntarily aborted fetus. But embryos are not destroyed in order to obtain them. And Neuralstem’s technology allows them to proliferate all the cells they need from a single fetus.

“This was not a surprise to me,” Richard Garr, CEO of Neuralstem, said about the Geron news. “I think the writing was on the wall when Tom Okarma was either pushed out or left on his own. It was pretty clear the they were not interested in being a stem cell company at that point.”

Okarma was Gerons’s CEO for 13 years and was the public face of the company’s fight to use embryonic stem cells.

Meanwhile, Neuralstem has already treated 12 ALS patients, and doctors will treat number 13 on Friday. Garr believes his cells are easier to control and target than embryonic stem cells for treating neural diseases.

Next up for Neuralstem is a human trial testing their cells in chronic spinal cord patients. So we might be saying goodbye to Geron, but not to the hope of spinal cord injured folks getting out of their wheelchairs. [San Francisco Business Times]

Image: Shutterstock/Andrea Danti

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* If You Can’t Get an Organ, an Organoid Might Do

http://gizmodo.com/5851454/if-you-cant-get-an-organ-an-organoid-might-do

Oct 19, 2011

If You Can’t Get an Organ, an Organoid Might Do

The line waiting for organ donors is 112,381 people long and growing, and 18 people daily die waiting. To help patients survive the interim, scientists are working on “organoinds”—mini organs that would temporarily operate outside the body.

Dr. Rober Hariri, a surgeon and CEO of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, is using stem cells derived from placentas (a refreshingly non-conroversial source of stem cells), to build the temporary organs. He devised a method for implanting the stem cells into a tissue matrix made from cells taken from cadavers. If the matrix is made of, say, kidney cells, the stem cells will take cues from their environment and also transform into kidney cells.

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The drawing depicts stem cells being extracted from a placenta.

The resulting glob is a mini-organ that could temporarily perform the functions of a failing human liver, kidney, heart, and possibly any other human organ. The patients’ blood would be filtered through the organ through tubes.

“This could be the way we build replacement parts,” Hariri said.

You can check out their patent here. Hariri will talk more about his progress with organoids at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society annual meeting in Houston in December.

[Images: Celgene, US Patent 7914779]