(Press-News.org) Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center are reporting promising results from laboratory and animal experiments involving a new combination therapy for multiple myeloma, the second most common form of blood cancer.
The study published online in the journal Cancer Research details a dramatic increase in multiple myeloma cell death caused by a combination of the drugs obatoclax and flavopiridol. The researchers, led by Steven Grant, M.D., Shirley Carter Olsson and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Oncology Research, associate director for translational research, program co-leader and member of Developmental Therapeutics and member of the Cancer Cell Signaling program at VCU Massey Cancer Center, found that the two drugs worked together through different mechanisms to promote a form of cell suicide known as apoptosis.
"There is an urgent need for curative therapies for multiple myeloma," says Grant. "Our hope is that this research will lay the foundation for new and more effective treatments for patients with multiple myeloma and potentially other blood cancers for which adequate therapies are lacking."
Obatoclax is an experimental agent currently being investigated in various forms of blood cancers. It works by disabling proteins that prevent cancer cells from undergoing apoptosis. Flavopiridol is a member of a class of agents known as a cyclin-dependant kinase (CDK) inhibitors, and blocks the growth of cancer cells in addition to reducing levels of anti-apoptotic proteins.
In laboratory experiments, the novel drug combination dramatically increased multiple myeloma cell death. These results were confirmed in animal models where the drugs significantly improved the survival of immune-compromised mice with human multiple myeloma. An unexpected effect was also observed – flavopiridol, in addition to reducing levels of anti-apoptotic proteins, significantly increased the expression of apoptosis-inducing proteins such as Bim, a protein shown in previous studies to trigger cell death.
"This research builds on nearly a decade of work carried out by our laboratory that focuses on manipulating mechanisms that lead to apoptosis in hematological malignancies," says Grant. "Our findings could have immediate implications for the design of clinical trials using combinations of these types of drugs. In fact, plans to develop such a trial at Massey are currently underway."
Because the findings showed synergism between these two classes of drugs, the researchers plan to test other clinically-relevant CDK inhibitors in combination with obatoclax for multiple myeloma.
INFORMATION:
Grant collaborated with the study's lead co-authors, Yun Dai, M.D., Ph.D., and Shuang Chen, M.D., Ph.D., from the VCU Department of Internal Medicine, who were key contributors to this work. Other collaborators included Xinyan Pei, M.D., Ph.D., also from the VCU Department of Internal Medicine; Paul Dent, Ph.D., Universal Corporation distinguished professor in cancer cell signaling and member of the Developmental Therapeutics program at VCU Massey; and Robert Orlowski, Ph.D., M.D., from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The full manuscript of this study can be found at: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2012/06/14/0008-5472.CAN-12-1118.long
This research was supported by NIH Research Project Grant (RO1) CA100866, a Multiple Myeloma SPORE award from the National Cancer Institute, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America and, in part, by funding from VCU Massey Cancer Center's NIH-NCI Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA016059.
News directors: Broadcast access to VCU Massey Cancer Center experts is available through VideoLink ReadyCam. ReadyCam transmits video and audio via fiber optics through a system that is routed to your newsroom. To schedule a live or taped interview, contact John Wallace, (804) 628-1550.
About VCU Massey Cancer Center
VCU Massey Cancer Center is one of only 67 National Cancer Institute-designated institutions in the country that leads and shapes America's cancer research efforts. Working with all kinds of cancers, the Center conducts basic, translational and clinical cancer research, provides state-of-the-art treatments and clinical trials, and promotes cancer prevention and education. Since 1974, Massey has served as an internationally recognized center of excellence. It has one of the largest offerings of clinical trials in Virginia and serves patients in Richmond and in five satellite locations. Its 1,000 researchers, clinicians and staff members are dedicated to improving the quality of human life by developing and delivering effective means to prevent, control and ultimately to cure cancer. Visit Massey online at www.massey.vcu.edu or call 877-4-MASSEY for more information.
About VCU and the VCU Medical Center
Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 32,000 students in 211 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-nine of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU's 13 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation's leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu.
END
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Tissue implants made of cells grown on a sponge-like scaffold have been shown in clinical trials to help heal arteries scarred by atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases. However, it has been unclear why some implants work better than others.
MIT researchers led by Elazer Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, have now shown that implanted cells' therapeutic properties depend on their shape, which is determined by the type of scaffold on which they are grown. The work could allow scientists to ...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2012-- To warn of chemical attacks and help save lives, it's vital to quickly determine if even trace levels of potentially deadly chemicals—such as the nerve gas sarin and other odorless, colorless agents—are present. U.S. Army researchers have developed a new chemical sensor that can simultaneously identify a potentially limitless numbers of agents, in real time. A paper describing the system has been published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) journal, Optics Letters.
The new system is based on a phenomenon known as the photoacoustic effect, ...
URBANA – A new discovery should make the alternative fuel butanol more attractive to the biofuel industry. University of Illinois scientist Hao Feng has found a way around the bottleneck that has frustrated producers in the past and could significantly reduce the cost of the energy involved in making it as well.
"The first challenge in butanol production is that at a certain concentration the fuel being created becomes toxic to the organism used to make it (Clostridium pasteurianum and other strains), and that toxicity limits the amount of fuel that can be made in one ...
BOZEMAN, Mont. – A female moth sitting on a goal post could attract a male moth on the other end of a football field. And even if she switched her scent over time, the male could still find her because of a mutation to a single gene in his antenna.
A team of researchers led by Montana State University entomologist Kevin Wanner identified that gene after seeing how it adapted to even the slightest change in the chemicals female moths emit to attract males. The scientists explained their findings in the Aug. 13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...
Facing looming policy uncertainty beyond 2012, the U.S. remained one of the fastest-growing wind power markets in the world in 2011—second only to China—according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Roughly 6.8 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity were connected to the U.S. grid in 2011—more than the 5.2 GW built in 2010, but below the 10 GW added in 2009. Driven by the threat of expiring federal incentives, new wind power installations are widely expected to be substantially ...
Pioneering mass spectrometry methods developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are helping plant biologists get their first glimpses of never-before-seen plant tissue structures.
The new method opens up new realms of study, ones that might have long-ranging implications for biofuels research and crop genetics.
"The data we're seeing are unprecedented," said Basil Nikolau, the Ames Laboratory faculty scientist heading up the project, funded by DOE's Office of Science.
The laboratory's team of researchers has developed a new more highly sensitive ...
Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) is cost-effective and saves lives by early detection. The ability to screen large numbers of individuals is especially important for states with tight health insurance budgets dealing with aging populations. However, in 2010 only 65 percent of US adults between ages 50 and 75 got the recommended screening. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the American Journal of Managed Care demonstrates a systematic approach to improve screening rates.
"With an introductory phone call and then mailed testing kits, ...
Scientists working with Professor Dr. Dr. Perikles Simon, head of the Sports Medicine division of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany, suggest in the light of recent analyses that German children gain weight soon after entering elementary school. From birth up to the age of five years, today's children's weight development is nearly identical to those from twenty years ago. Then as now there are about 10 percent of the children in this age range who are classified as being overweight. There is even a slight tendency that in the first five years of their ...
1. Task Force Finds Insufficient Evidence to Weigh the Benefits and Harms of Routine Screening for Age-related Hearing Loss
Age-related hearing loss is a common health problem that can affect independence, emotional well-being, and quality of life. Several screening methods have proven accurate for identifying hearing impairment, including simple clinical tools and questionnaires. In 1996, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended that primary care physicians periodically question older adults about their hearing, counsel them about hearing aids, and ...
RICHLAND, Wash. -- An analysis of a decade's worth of tropical cyclones shows that when hurricanes blow over ocean regions swamped by fresh water, the conditions can unexpectedly intensify the storm. Although the probability that hurricanes will hit such conditions is small, ranging from 10 to 23 percent, the effect is potentially large: Hurricanes can become 50 percent more intense, researchers report in a study appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
These results might help improve predictions of a hurricane's power in ...
