Scientists at a leading U.S. hospital have developed a “cancer-killing pill” that uses “targeted chemotherapy” to kill solid tumors. The chemotherapy drug does not affect healthy cells, the scientists said. The drug, called AOH1996, is named after Anna Olivia Healy, a child born in 1996 who died at the age of nine after being diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer.
Anna’s death may have been the spark that saved millions. Since her death, Anna’s family has donated money to Professor Linda Malkas, who spent 20 years developing AOH1996 at City of Hope. And now we are seeing promising developments.
A Breakthrough in Cancer Treatment
Professor Linda Malkas and her team have spent two decades developing a drug that targets a protein found in all cancers, including the one that killed Anna. The target is the cancerous variant of this protein, called proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). In its mutated form, PCNA helps cancer cells replicate and repair DNA, fueling tumor growth.
Prof. Malkas and his team at City of Hope in California, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, said their targeted chemotherapy “wiped out” all solid tumors in preclinical trials. The protein developed by the research team has been likened to “a snowstorm that shuts down a major airline hub and stops all flights only on planes carrying cancer cells”.
Prevents more than 70 types of cancer
The study, published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology, tested AOH1996 in more than 70 cell lines and found that it selectively killed cancer cells by disrupting the normal cell reproduction cycle, but did not interrupt the reproduction cycle of healthy stem cells. Preclinical studies show that the drug is effective in treating cells from breast, prostate, brain, ovarian, cervical, skin, and lung cancers.
However, the drug still needs to undergo rigorous safety and efficacy testing and large-scale clinical trials before it can be widely used. But the first patient received the potential cancer pill in October, and the phase one clinical trial is still ongoing and expected to last at least two years. Researchers are also continuing to study the mechanisms that make the drug work in animal studies.
Prof. Malkas said in a statement: “PCNA is like a large airline terminal center with multiple airplane gates. “The data show that PCNA is uniquely altered in cancer cells, and this fact has allowed us to design a drug that targets only the form of PCNA in cancer cells,” Prof. Malkas said in a statement.
Long Gu, senior author of the study, said: “No one has ever targeted PCNA as a therapeutic drug because PCNA is considered ‘untreatable,’ but it is clear that City of Hope has succeeded in developing an investigational drug for a challenging protein target.” The investigational chemotherapeutic agent is currently in a Phase 1 human clinical trial at the City of Hope.
