Potential cancer cure discovered

A researcher from Singapore has found a potential cure for a fatal form of bone marrow cancer that strikes 150,000 people around the world each year.

The cancer, called multiple myeloma, prevents the bone marrow from producing enough red and white blood cells and platelets. With chemotherapy, half the sufferers do not survive beyond 2 1/2 years.However Dr Gerrard Teoh, consultant haematologist and principal investigator at SingHealth’s Multiple Myeloma Research Facility, has discovered a way to develop an antibody that can track down and kill the fatal cancer cells.It is a protein-based drug modeled on the body’s own defence system which the patient can take in the form of an injection or a pill.Dr Teoh is patenting the antibody worldwide but many years of stringent trials and regulatory approval will follow before the cure will be available. He expects the process to last 12 years.Dr Teoh said he plans to run clinical trials for patients in two years’ time in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, after testing it on animals. He is also discussing it with pharmaceutical firms and biotech venture capitalists who may want to invest in the project.To make the breakthrough, Dr Teoh’s team took cancerous cells from a multiple myeloma patient and grew them in large quantities. Mice were injected with the ‘active ingredient’ in the cancer cells. The mice responded by producing antibodies to attack the injected components.The mouse cells were then fused with harmless cancer cells, turning them into cell factories, and the group screened the best fighter out of these 40,000 different hybrid-cells.The team is now decoding the mouse DNA which accomplished this feat so that it can replicate the results using human DNA for clinical trials.Dr Ken Anderson, chairman of the Multiple Myelomea Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board in the US and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is widely acknowledged as the top man in the field for pioneering critical advances against the disease.He has signed up as a key investigator with the team to help ensure that the clinical trials meet international standards. ‘The project is very promising,’ he said.(Source: The Straits Times)