Will Cancer Ever Be Eradicated?

Cancer has been a plague on our society for a long time. It is something nobody should have to experience, but yet so many of us do. Is there ever going to be a point in time where cancer won’t exist? I sure hope so. Many others if not all agree that this is a fight that we must win, but is it possible.

Researchers out of Kiel University, the Catholic University of Croatia, believe that cancer is an enemy that will continue to attack humans. They look at what is known as hydra, which are “tiny, coral-like polyps that emerged hundreds of millions of years ago — form tumors similar to those found in humans.” What this means is that because these polyps have been around through the stages of human life, it is difficult to see a way that they would go away if they have been around for this long. Thomas Bosch who is an evolutionary biologist that headed the study expresses how even if you try to attack against hydra, they keep regenerating so if you can rid of some, more will form. He states, “Cancer results from DNA mutations that throw a wrench into the molecular circuits that regulate the cell cycle. Unregulated, cancer cells multiply uncontrollably. They also evade a process known as apoptosis, in which cells with genetic mistakes essentially commit suicide.”

What Bosch and his team decided to do was take two species of hydra and make imitations of each to see what would happen over a course of five years. The female polyps seemed to have been ruined by the tumors. As they watched the hydras with and without the tumors, they noticed that the female hydra cells which turn into eggs could not stop dividing with no cells dying off (apoptosis), which signaled what occurs in women that have ovarian cancer. Next, the team studied the hydra’s DNA finding a gene that prevents apoptosis from happening, thereby allowing the growth of the tumor to continue. They then matched that with a gene found in humans that creates the same problem of uncontrollable tumor growth and no cells dying off do to apoptosis. Logically after discovering this, they decided to inject the tumors into the healthy polyps. The result found that the tumor spread across every one of the healthy polyps. This does not mean that it can’t be detected in the human body and fought against. A drug labeled Yervoy, has shown in trials over the last 12 years  to have eradicated these cells up to 20% in patients battling melanoma.  2014-190-2

A geneticist named Yusuke Nakamura, MD, PhD who has done work for the University of Chicago’s Department for Medicine & Biological Sciences, has conducted a study that has contradicted claims that cancer can’t be cured. Specific to certain cancers, Nakamura discusses a drug known as OTS964 that has performed well on ridding cancer on mice that had been inflicted with cancers. OTS964 works by obstructing a protein, TOPK, which aids in the spread of breast and lung cancer. Knowing that TOPK is very unlikely found in healthy cells is significant to understand. Nakamura explains that his team took 300,000 compounds and eventually narrowed them down to 1,000 that would be the best in treating humans with. After finding the chemicals likely needed to fight cancers, the research team injected the OTS964 into a group of mice that had cancerous human cells for a period of three weeks with injections occurring two times a week. Of the six mice that were a part of this experiment, five of them had their tumors eradicated. Interestingly enough, the team decided to try giving the drug in a pill instead of injection and actually allowed all of the mice to now have their tumors gone. The study was performed in relation to lung cancer, however, the TOPK protein is known to play an active role in liver, brain, breast, and bladder tumors, showing much promise that this drug could work very well on humans.

karcinom-635x388The problems with these studies are that they only focus on particular types of cancer, which of course is not a bad thing, yet research still needs to be done on every type of cancer known at this time. With both preventative measures and continuing studies, we could be on the way to better fighting cancers before they spread or eradicating certain kinds of cancers with an   effective drug. One thing’s for sure is that there is great hope in this fight.

Sources: 

http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/new-miracle-pill-can-completely-eradicate-cancer-set-for-human

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/21/342012360/an-unstoppable-killer-new-research-suggests-cancer-cant-be-cured

http://scienceofsingularity.com/tag/ots964/

http://www.uni-kiel.de/pressemeldungen/index.php?pmid=2014-190-krebsstudie&lang=en&pr=1