Hi Ladies
In January I read an article about a new treatment regarding Gene BC13 in the Daily Mail. I wrote to the doctor mentioned in the article. Some of you may have done the same and got the same reply. I received a reply yesterday and thought I would type the body of the letter for you:
'We idnetified the human gene Bc13 as a potentially interesting breast cancer related gene eight years ago, but it wasn’t until 3 years ago that we realised that it had such an important role in metastatic disease. It appears to control the way that cancer cells move and migrate through surrounding tissues. This is an essential step in the movement of a tumour from its primary (breast) site to other locations around the body. Our main achievement to date has been to identify a chemical agent that blocks Bc13 inside the cell. We have used this agent in mice with mammary tumours and have prevented these animals from getting metastatic tumours. Currently we are still performing pre-clinical studies on the agent. This is a long and convoluted process that - as you will appreciate- requires extensive checks and re-checks to ensure that the agent will be effective against tumours in patients and will not be toxic to the individuals taking the drug.
A number of technical and statutory hurdles need to be overcome before we will be permitted to test the agent in humans for the first time. In the meantime we are working closely with a local breast cancer clinic here in Cardiff to test the agent (and other anti-cancer agents) directly on tumour samples surgically removed from patients at clinic. These ‘live’ tissues are transported here to our laboratories where we maintain and grow them in the laborotory before testing them with the experimental drugs. This is the closest we are allowed to get to ‘real’ patient tumours at this stage. Once these and other experiments are complete in approximately 18 months (possibly the beginning of 2016) we hope to be in a position to start clinical trials proper, where the drug will be administered to breast cancer patients. Progress with our drug continues to move along with some pace. We are now testing whether the agent works in other cancer types - as we expect it will - and are increasing the number of staff working on the agent to ensure we move forward as quickly as we can.’
This is from a Richard Clarkson who works at the European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute at Cardiff University. I thought it may interest people. We have to hang in there - new drugs are coming out all the time. gigli XX