If our immune system was able to detect cancer cells, it could make a big difference. What if a drug could cause cancer cells to show themselves to the immune system, which could then be used to target and kill them?
That's the approach that a burgeoning form of cancer treatment is adopting, as described in a new study published on Monday.
A full quarter of all tumors are thought to be caused by the KRAS gene, which is drawn from the cancer cell. According to the study's press release, the treatment turns the now-surfacedprotein into a giant signal to the body's immune system.
Kevin Shokat, a chemist at the University of California, San Francisco, said in the release that the immune system can recognize the KRAS, but it can't find it very well. It becomes easier for the immune system when we put this marker on theProtein
Doctors have struggled to put into practice the premise that it is a simple and logical premise.
It is very difficult for drugs to bind to the surface of a cancer-causing KRASProtein because most of them reside inside the cell.
Scientists have been able to develop drugs that block the effects of KRAS thanks to Shokat. The researchers turned to a drug called ARS1620.
In the Cancer Cell study, the researchers found that ARS1620 bound to KRAS and drew them to the cell's surface. The drug-KRAS complex they formed gave the body an alert to get rid of the cell they were located on.
According to the release, one of the study's authors and a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, said that the mutatedProtein is usually flying under the radar. When you attach this drug to it, it gets spotted immediately.
The researchers say they were able to develop a new form of immunotherapy that stimulates the immune system to recognize and target cancer cells that are bound to ARS 1620. The treatment worked on cells that were resistant to the drug.
A lot more work needs to be done before the treatment can be used in humans. Craik is still positive.
"This is a platform technology, that's what I mean," he said. "We would like to go after other targets that could move the molecule to the cell surface and make them receptive to immunotherapy."
Young people are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than older people.
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