Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
A team of researchers from UNC Chapel Hill just made an intriguing and potentially revolutionary announcement: By using the body’s own “exosomes,” they have not only developed a powerful new way to diagnose cancer, but a sort of invisibility cloak that can help keep chemotherapy drugs safe in the patient’s system. The team’s research shows that by using one of the body’s own natural structures to hide their chemotherapeutic drugs, they were able to have normal therapeutic effects with about a fiftieth of the overall dose.
What is an exosome? It’s a bit of cell membrane that has “budded” off from the cell itself, basically pinched off by a little protein lasso into a much, much smaller little cell with little, or a specific list of things, inside of it. Exosomes are used to ferry signaling molecules between cells, to eliminate wastes, even as a crude way of getting rid of unwanted cell surface proteins — just throw them off.
"I have what's called Triple Negative (breast cancer). I have a genetic mutation called BRCA1, which increases your chance of getting breast cancer by 80 percent," said Youtie. Youtie paid Champions Oncology, a company based in New Jersey, to try to find a treatment that could work for her. Dr. Angela Davies is the chief medical officer for Champions Oncology. "What we do is implant patient tumor tissue...into an immunodeficient mouse, or a mouse that doesn't have an intact immune system, so that we can grow that tumor and then test different drug therapies to be able to predict which drugs are going to work best in a patient," said Davies.
The laboratory can try out different drugs on a number of mice at the same time. Youtie had several treatments to choose from. "We got the results, and the less toxic one worked equally to the more toxic one," said Youtie. There are drawbacks to using mouse models. It's expensive. Youtie paid Champions $30,000 because she wanted to test several drugs.
And, there are no guarantees. Treatments that work on mice have only a 50 percent chance they could work for people. But, anything that does not work on mice won't work on people. Another drawback is that patients delay their cancer treatment until the mouse results are in. The drug Youtie chose worked for her, so she is pleased with her choice to test the drugs on mice first, before she had chemotherapy.
Mice Help Find the Right Chemotherapy Treatment for Cancer Patients
Off-patent chemical medicines have for decades been copied with precision and sold as cheap generic versions, but drug regulators have only over recent years embraced copycat versions of complex biological drugs, known as biosimilars. Even though biotech drugs, which are proteins made from genetically-modified cells, cannot be exactly replicated, biosimilars have been shown to be equivalent in terms of effectiveness and side effects. "Biosimilars are must-have weaponry in financially sustaining health care systems on a global scale as well as significantly improving outcomes for an increasing number of patients throughout Europe and the rest of the world," ESMO President Professor Fortunato Ciardiello said in a statement.
ESMO added that price discounts for biosimilars of 20 to 40 percent could be reached in Europe, with potential savings for health care systems of 50-100 billion euros ($53-$107 billion) by 2020. Europe has been in the lead over the United States in opening up regulatory pathways for biosimilars.
The first biosimilar versions of cancer drugs are expected to reach the market in Europe this year, with Amgen Inc and Allergan Plc seeking EU approval of their version of Roche Holding AG's blockbuster cancer treatment Avastin. "Biosimilars are an excellent opportunity to have good, valid drug options that improve the sustainability and affordability of cancer treatment in various countries," ESMO said, also publishing a paper with recommendations on how doctors should handle them.
Europe's Oncologists Back Biosimilar Versions of Cancer Drugs
