Cancer treatment- why is this not more popular?

These are stepping stones to the discovery of a cure for cancer - even though I hate using that phrase. These "chemicals" shouldn't be confused with the term 'medicine/drug' because they are not drugs. Hence, they are not available to the public simply because they haven't undergone the appropriate testing (i.e. mice monkeys humans)

Here's the study in a nutshell...

The present study analysed the action of NVP-AEW541 on MM cell lines and freshly isolated cells from MM patients. Our results show that NVP-AEW541 significantly inhibited growth of MM cells and enhanced the cytotoxicity triggered by several antimyeloma agents used in the clinic. We have observed that NVP-AEW541 induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of MM cells via both caspase-dependent and -independent pathways, overcomes conventional drug resistance, and inhibits proliferation in presence of BMSC. Finally in a xenograft plasmocytoma mouse model NVP-AEW541 was able to inhibit the myelomatous growth.

...

Our studies on the mechanism of action of NVP-AEW541 indicate that this compound affects several routes involved in the control of cell cycle progression and apoptosis. NVP-AEW541 caused a progressive accumulation of MM1S cells in G0/G1 phases with a marked decrease in the percentage of cells in S phase. Recent studies showed that another IGF-IR inhibitor, Ciclolignan PPP, also decreased the number of cells in S phase; nevertheless, in contrast to our results, this effect was associated with an increase of cells in phase G2/M (Stromberg et al, 2006).

Ah- ok, so it's more of an assistive chemical for use with other treatments then. Thank you for answering, I thought perhaps cancer treatment chemicals were released far quicker than they are.

I am really trying to get my head around some of the possible treatments, because I have a module on cancer treatments coming up soon, and I want to have a fair amount of background reading before I start. Does anyone understand the theory of the methodology i.e. why they are doing what they are doing, this is my interpretation, I don’t think I have a very good grasp on it yet:

Cell proliferation, cell cycle and apoptosis assays- They are analysing the normal growth of the MM cells as a control

Microarray RNA analyses- To find out when the beginning of apoptosis is, and extract the total RNA at this point-but don’t know why

Immunoprecipitation and Western blotting- not sure what they’re trying to extract and analyse here.

Subcellular fractionation- Again, not too sure here.

Effect of interleukin-6, IGF-I and BMSC on NVP-AEW541-induced growth inhibition- This is to see what effect these chemicals have on NVP-AEW541

In vitro kinase assay- an in vitro test on the effects of NVP-AEW541 on the MM cells

MM xenografts- An in vivo test on a mouse

Thanks!

Those procedures depend on the actual study so you shouldn't get the idea that it's the same for every experiment. For example, Western blotting is used to detect a particular protein in a mixture. Subcellular fractionation is used to fractionate the components of the cell; for example, they centrifuge cellular content at different speeds and times to collect supernatant that has specific organelles. Interleukin-6 is a cytokine produced by immune cells to cause an inflammatory response (IL-1 and TNFalpha do pretty much the same thing, but once again it depends on the cells they are using since not all cells have the receptors for IL-6.

Rather than focusing on "cancer", you should focus on a specific type, like Breast Cancer. In fact, I have a presentation from a long time ago in which you may be interested. Really back if you want me to locate it for you!

You think!!!

There were even more than this in the past and you only hear about it once or twice on the news but because its a crabby news stations (ALL) of course they never mention anything about it or sometimes from where it came from or an UPDATES about it....

It just piss me off because they could've saved many lives..

Yea true but you can't just simply administer what works in a lab to human beings or else you will get lawsuits for this move.

Have you all heard of EPIGENETIC THERAPY...look it up..very interesting. It is the hot topic of biology after the Genome. Scientists are finding ways to manipulate genes simply by environmental factors which would either "activate" or "deactivate" any targeted genes.