Cancer Drug Being Tested in New Trial

A new drug that could strike a powerful blow against cancer is being tested in a pilot trial.

Although research is at an early stage, scientists believe the drug shows enormous promise and could be used to tackle resistant, fast-spreading cancers.

In mice, it proved highly effective at killing and preventing the growth of tumours, and was also shown to have few side- effects.

A small group of up to 56 patients with advanced, spreading cancers are now taking part in the first clinical trial of the drug.

The compound, code-named 0N0190, inhibits an enzyme which plays a vital role in driving cell division.

At this stage doctors will be assessing how safe the compound is rather than its ability to combat disease.

The target of the drug is Plk-1 (polo-like kinase1), a protein that acts as a catalyst in cell division.

High levels of Plk1 have been seen in many human tumours and laboratory studies have shown that inhibiting the enzyme leads to cancer cell death.

Professor Premkumar Reddy, from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, USA, who led the research, said: ‘Because all signalling pathways that have gone awry in a cancer cell ultimately affect cell proliferation, a reasonable approach to cancer therapy is to develop inhibitors that block the function of a critical molecule required by a tumour cell to complete cell division. One such molecule appears to be Plk1.’

Prof Reddy’s team examined the effects of 0N01910 on tumour growth in several animal experiments.

They found the drug arrested cell division in a variety of human cancer cells grown in mice, including those notoriously resistant to traditional chemotherapy.

It had a significant impact on 94 different tumours, including those affecting the liver, breast and pancreas.