Good Morning My FRiends,
Thought the following information might be of very positive thoughts and
progress.
Researchers Create a New Form of Therapy for Leukemia and Lymphoma
July 2, 1999
ST. PAUL, Minn., July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers experimenting with
cells and mice have created a new anti-leukemic drug which attacks and
kills leukemia cells without side effects. The technique may be tested
on humans this fall.
Dr. F. M. Uckun of the Hughes Institute, St. Paul, MN, said Tuesday
WHI-P131 is actually a rationally designed small molecule that will
inhibit a life-maintaining enzyme, known as JAK3, in leukemic cells.
"Normal tissue is not affected," he said, "Only the leukemia cells are
going to die."
Uckun, senior author of a study that appeared in the journal Clinical
Cancer Research said the same technique can also be used for treatment
of allergic disorders since JAK3 plays a key role in allergy as well.
In the study, Uckun and his team treated human leukemia cancer cells.
The cancer, called B-cell precursor leukemia, is the most common form of
childhood cancer and the second most common form of acute leukemia in
adults.
Uckun said earlier studies have shown that a molecule called JAK3
tyrosine kinase is essential for the survival of leukemia cells. The
problem was how to completely block the action of JAK3 inside the cancer
cells. And the solution was the novel compound WHI-P131. The development
of WHI-P131 was aided by a 3D computer model of the protein JAK3 which
demonstrated how the drug would interact with JAK3.
Uckun said the findings suggest a treatment that included cycles of
first the drugs, then this JAK3 inhibitor could be very effective
against leukemia.
Dr. Uckun's group now plans to seek Food and Drug Administration
approval to test the drug on human leukemia patients. Uckun said
clinical trials of the therapy should start this fall.
Clinical Cancer Research, which published the study, is the journal of
the American Association of Cancer Research.
Reference: Sudbeck EA, Liu XP, Narla RK, Mahajan S, Ghosh S, Mao C,
Uckun FM. Structure-based design of specific inhibitors of Janus Kinase
3 as apoptosis-inducing antileukemic agents. Clinical Cancer Research,
5:1569-1582, 1999.
SOURCE Hughes Institute
/CONTACT: Susan Mau Larson of Hughes Institute, 651-697-9228, ext. 679,
or pager, 651-908-0781/
God Bless,
marty and Barb auslander
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically-generated notice. If you'd like to be removed
from the mailing list, please visit the Medicine-On-Line Discussion Forum
at <http://www.meds.com/con_faq.html>, or send an email message to:
majordomo@lists.meds.com
with the subject line blank and the body of the message containing the line:
unsubscribe mol-cancer your-email-address
where the phrase your-email-address is replaced with your actual email
address.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
