• Question: do u think u will ever be able to cure cancer

    Asked by strawberrylover22 to Jess on 13 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Strawberrylover22!

      haha i recognise the names – grapes, peach and banana lovers! 🙂

      WELL personally I don’t think I will be able to cure a type of cancer at the moment because my drug discovery research is at its early stages!!
      But who knows- one of my plants might contain a new kick-ass chemical that can kill some cancer cells!!! yeah!!!

      But in the future I would like to be involved in research groups that are developing anticancer drugs!

      There are already hundreds of anticancer treatments out there but because cancer are very clever cells- whatever way you try to kill it, it will mutate and overcome it!
      So if I want to send a drug to its attack its DNA (genetic material) – the drug might be working well and cutting up the DNA at first but the cancer cell will know this and will respond by make some repair enzymes to repair the DNA!

      Otherwise here is a list of some already discovered drugs to treat cancer!

      Unfortunately- I cannot copy and past pictures on here so I will give you the links to check out these structures:

      1. Taxol, a natural chemical found in the Pacific Yew tree by Dr. Wani and Dr. Wall. It is used to treat breast, lung and ovarian cancers.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paclitaxel

      2. Temozolomide developed by Professor Malcolm Stevens and his group at Aston University. This is for patients suffering from Gliomas (cancer from spine or brain cells), Melanomas (Skin cancer) and Brain metastases (Cancer formed from another part of the body that has moved to the brain):
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temozolomide

      3. Flavopiridol is currently being developed by Aventis Oncology and The National Cancer Institute (US) and it is used to treat Chronic Lymphocytic Leukeamia (cancer of the blood)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavopiridol

      I think Flavopiridol is the first one chemists/biologists have made from scratch that will interfere with the cell cycle proteins for cancer patients!

      4. Herceptin
      Herceptin is an antibody developed by Genentech.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trastuzumab

      I will explain this one a little more because I find it hard to understand too but it is so interesting!! This treatment falls into the category of biologics (using biological stuff to treat diseases for example vaccination).

      Antibodies is normally produced by white blood cells when a foreign harmful substance (antigen) is inside the body; antibodies will bind to the antigen so it slows down the movement of the antigen and to allow other white blood cells to eat it up!
      Her2 is a receptor present on the cell surface to receive growth signals so cancer cells can grow non-stop. Her2 receptors are over-expressed in ~25% of breast cancer patients for example normal cells have 20,000 Her2 receptors on the cell surface, cancer cells can have up to 2,000,000 Her2 receptors instead.
      This herceptin antibody is designed specifically to recognise this Her2 receptor and bind to it so it will be attacked by the immune system, which involves the white blood cells.

      Hope these examples help! Let me know if you want to know anything else

      Jess

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