Tag Archives: Division

Stem cell cancer hope

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Scientists have pinpointed a new target in the battle against cancer. They believe that stem cells – the precursors of normal skin, blood and other types of tissue in the body – frequently play a crucial role in the spread of tumours.

Cancer Research UK (CRUK), Britain’s biggest cancer charity, has set up a consortium of research groups to develop drugs that could deactivate affected stem cells. Such medicines would stop these cells from dividing to create new tumours.

Researchers involved in the project said last week that they hoped to highlight new drugs within two years. Clinical trials could begin using the most promising of these. Cancers of the skin and blood are considered to be prime targets for the new medicines.

Stem cells

Stem cells

“Stem cells are responsible for renewing tissue in the body,” said Dr Clive Stanway, chief officer of Cancer Research Technology, the charity’s commercial arm. “But sometimes they are subverted by cancerous processes. You can give a cancer patient radiotherapy or cut out their tumour surgically – but you can still leave a few affected stem cells behind. The person appears cured. Then the stem cells start dividing again and the tumour reappears.”


Stem cells come in two varieties: embryonic stem cells, created at conception, from which all cells in the body are ultimately derived; and adult stem cells, which lie dormant until switched on when new tissue is needed. The new campaign will be concerned only with adult stem cells.

Professor Fiona Watt, deputy director of the CRUK’s Cambridge Research Institute, said: “Essentially, these drugs would tell these cells to stop growing and multiplying.”

Drugs are being tested by CRUK researchers to find those that are best able to switch off cell division and the spread of cancer.

Exenatide and insulin mix hope for diabetes

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Combining the newer diabetes drug exenatide with insulin provides better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes than insulin alone and helps promote weight loss, a new study has found.

“This study may be the best result ever for patients whose diabetes is inadequately controlled on a combination of pills and insulin,” said John Buse, lead author of the study and chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

“Until now, it was inconceivable that you could get such patients under excellent control with weight loss and no significant problems with hypoglycemia,” Buse said.

Exenatide

Exenatide

Type 2 diabetes is a devastating disease, a leading contributor to blindness, amputations, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and even cancer. But the most powerful diabetes drug, a formulation of insulin called Lantus, is associated with weight gain and low blood sugar reactions that may limit the success of more intensive treatment.


Exenatide (brand name: Byetta) is a newer diabetes drug whose active ingredient was first discovered in the saliva of the Gila monster, a large lizard from the Arizona desert.

“It has the advantages of not leading to low blood sugar and in fact promotes weight loss,” Buse said.

“Because Byetta and Lantus have very different strengths, we thought that combining the two had the potential to give us the best of both. It is wonderful, when you guess right,” Buse added.