Farber's antifolates

Here is the paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine on Farber's antifolates. Quite interesting for a 64 year old paper.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM194806032382301

The Emperor of All Maladies

1 Mukherjee started to face to cancer in 2003. He began advanced training in cancer medicine at the Cancer Institute in Boston in the summer of 2003. He was shocked to discover that chemotherapy and the tongue-twisting names of the drugs destroy patient’s precious lives or beautiful life-styles instead of curing them. Cancer is not modern diseases. Cancer has influenced humans throughout recorded history. Scientists found the evidence of cancer among fossilized bone tumors, the bone cancer, and bony skull in ancient Egypt. In that time, there was no treatment. However, Doctors started to understand cancer in the first 19^th century. Cancer is a disease that starts when a single cell begin to grow out of control. Cancer begins with a small accident, or a mutation in one cell. However, we don’t understand how we could build, adapt and repair ourselves. If we could figure out all these mystery, we could find a way to repair cancer cells.

2 In his book, Mukherjee introduced two women: first, Carla Reed who is a young mother panicked for the sudden onset of leukaemia and second, Sidney Farber who first administered cytogenic drugs to leukaemia patients in the 1940s at Children’s Hospital Boston. The author describes cancer therapeutics, molecular biochemistry and genetics hoping to find out a cure to save Carla. Carla Reed is just 30 years old when she became ill. It could be bloodcurdling, desperate, and fear experience looking at lovely her three years old daughter.

Acute lymphocytic leukemia is a cancer of the lymphocytes. “Acute” means that the disease begins and gets worse quickly, so Carla needs immediate treatment. Carla found a few bruises on her back, and they vanished leaving large map-shaped marks on her back. It could be a dreadful event for any young women. Soon, she can’t walk up stairs. Then she can’t stand up. She crawled down the hallways of her house. When I had a back pain, I had to crawl down to the bathroom and it took one hour to get there. I could not tell you how I was miserable.

Carla and her husband saw a general physician, but nobody found her cancer. Cancer is a difficult to diagnosis, especially for young people. Can we blame doctors who can’t find cancer?

One of my friends missed urinary cancer of his patients 10 years ago. He still blames himself for his miss. To cure cancer is battle among scientists, doctors, pathologists, lab workers, other medical workers and patients. One word “curable” encourages doctors and patients. How a word is important for people’s lives. I can feel the author’s passion to find out best treatments for cancer to save young people’s lives and their families.

Next set of questions.. to be answered this week...

3. The author writes how in the early 1950's, the New York Times refused to print the word cancer or breast. Compare this to how we view cancer today.

4. SIdney Farber's early clinical experiments with antifolates in 1947 and 48 were a failure, with all his young leukemia patients eventually dying fo teh the disease. But with the results of these trials, Mukherjee writes, Farber saw a door open. Why do Farber's trials mark a turning point in the history of cancer research?
5. Review the case on Min Chiu Li (135-138) and explain why Freirich said that Li was accused of experimenting on people, but that he also states that everyone was experimenting .. to not experiment would mean to follow the old rules-to do absolutely nothing. Do you think Li's actions were ethical?

nanosensors and cancer biomarkers

A team led by Yale University researchers has used nanosensors to measure cancer biomarkers in whole blood for the first time. Their findings, which appeared December 13 in the advanced online publication of Nature Nanotechnology, could dramatically simplify the way physicians test for biomarkers of cancer and other diseases. The team, led by Yale's Dr. Mark Reed used nanowire sensors to detect and measure concentrations of two specific biomarkers: one for prostate cancer and the other for breast cancer

the wonders of p53

Researchers have identified a pathway that is elevated in p53-mutated cancers and that points to the potential for using cholesterol-lowering statins to help hold back cancer progression. Studies on 3-D breast cancer cell cultures by a Columbia University-led team found that p53 mutations elevate the cholesterol-synthesizing mevalonate pathway, which has been implicated in multiple aspects of tumorigenesis, including proliferation, survival, invasion, and metastasis. The cancer cells then appear to become dependent on this pathway for their continued survival, cancer phenotype, and invasive properties.

Breast cancer stem cells...

Scientists claim nanoparticle-mediated photothermal therapy could provide an effective therapeutic option for killing offcancer stem cells (CSCs) that are resistant to traditional forms of radiation and chemotherapy. Wake Forest School of Medicine researchers have found that while cancer stem cells from otherwise hard to treat triple negative breast cancer are largely resistant to traditional forms of hyperthermia, the local high levels of heat generated by carbon nanotubes subjected to laser light causes cell necrosis and rapid cell death of both CSCs and the bulk cancer cells.

Farber.