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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 21 2021, @08:55PM   Printer-friendly

New approach eradicates breast cancer in mice:

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new approach to treating breast cancer kills 95-100% of cancer cells in mouse models of human estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancers and their metastases in bone, brain, liver and lungs. The newly developed drug, called ErSO, quickly shrinks even large tumors to undetectable levels.

[...] "Even when a few breast cancer cells do survive, enabling tumors to regrow over several months, the tumors that regrow remain completely sensitive to retreatment with ErSO," said U. of I. biochemistry professor David Shapiro, who led the research with Illinois chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother. "It is striking that ErSO caused the rapid destruction of most lung, bone and liver metastases and dramatic shrinkage of brain metastases, since tumors that have spread to other sites in the body are responsible for most breast cancer deaths," Shapiro said.

[...] ErSO is nothing like the drugs that are commonly used to treat estrogen-receptor-positive cancers, Shapiro said.

"This is not another version of tamoxifen or fulvestrant, which are therapeutically used to block estrogen signaling in breast cancer," he said. Even though it binds to the same receptor that estrogen binds, it targets a different site on the estrogen receptor and attacks a protective cellular pathway that is already turned on in cancer cells, he said.

[...] "Many of these breast cancers shrink by more than 99% in just three days," Shapiro said. "ErSO is fast-acting and its effects on breast cancers in mice are large and dramatic."

The pharmaceutical company Bayer AG has licensed the new drug and will explore its potential for further study in human clinical trials targeting estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancers, the researchers said. The researchers will next explore whether ErSO is effective against other types of cancers that contain estrogen receptor.

Journal Reference:
Matthew W. Boudreau, Darjan Duraki, Lawrence Wang, et al. A small-molecule activator of the unfolded protein response eradicates human breast tumors in mice [$], Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abf1383)


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 22 2021, @11:58AM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday July 22 2021, @11:58AM (#1159097)

    Oh, hey, as compared to chemo ... That's a really low bar, and there is a great chance this is better, definitely worth investigating. What needs to be watched for are unexpected side effects, they could be impressively significant.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:00AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:00AM (#1159361)

    Absolutely. Any cell with the pathway already turned on has the potential to trigger apoptosis or be targeted by the immune system. However, most healthy cells in the vast majority of adults do not have the receptor at all and the vast majority of those that do should not have it activated at any given time and the relatively few that do will not have it at a high level (compared to the normal cell level, not the even higher cancer cell level). Even better, you can time the treatment with the hormonal cycle of males or females to reduce the risk further.

    This drug’s effect appears to be very powerful, but thankfully it also appears to be so targeted that it mitigates much of its own risk. There have been others in this class that are very, very cytotoxic but this one appears to not suffer the well-known problems with them while not giving up the potency of the more dangerous ones. At least that is what the limited in vitro and in Vito model testing has shown so far. I’d expect a much larger study (number and cell types) on animal models in nine months or so. But that said, these results look good so far and their doesn’t appear to be many issues with the study itself.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:08AM (#1159362)

      Nothing quite like an autocorrection and not proofreading to make it look like models named Vito are the preferred way of testing new drugs.