
New drug overcomes resistance in aggressive breast cancers - elorant
https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/new-evolution-busting-drug-overcomes-resistance-in-aggressive-breast-cancers
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Gatsky
This isn’t ‘evolution busting’, have to laugh at university PR. The drug has
modest single agent activity, and is additive with a chemotherapy drug in an
animal model (not synergistic). The mechanism of action is a bit interesting,
it seems to make cells rush through the cell cycle.

The drug development is going to be complicated. The drug doesn’t work well by
itself, so getting the right combination dosing and schedule is crucial. It
also only works in some tumours and there is a candidate biomarker, so a
clinically meaningful assay has to be developed. There is also no idea about
toxicity yet. Long road ahead.

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gus_massa
I agree. It looks promising but IIUC it is just a new chemotherapy drug. The
general idea of killing cells that reproduce is common in many (most?) of the
chemotherapy drugs, so they produce nasty side effects like perhaps killing
the bone marrow that also have (healthy) cells with a fast preproduction
cicle.

I really don't understand the evolutionary/Darwinian spin. It doesn't make
sense, it looks like a buzzword. They just (try to) kill all the cells that
reproduce like other chemotherapy drugs.

~~~
entee
There are even DNA and cell division targeted agents. Colchicine kills cells
by messing with DNA segregation between dividing cells. This one appears to
promote division? Though I haven’t read all the details.

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gus_massa
I think it doesn't promote cell division directly. IIUC this make the cell
during the division to not wait until the chromosomes are correctly split, so
the new cell have a high chance of getting a wrong number of chromosome and
die. Since the cell doesn't wait until everything is in order, the division is
faster.

Form the abstract:
[https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/18/10/1696](https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/18/10/1696)

> _In in vivo pharmacodynamic experiments, BOS172722 potently inhibits the
> spindle assembly checkpoint induced by paclitaxel in human tumor xenograft
> models of TNBC,_ [....]

I think the key part is " _spindle assembly checkpoint_ "
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_checkpoint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_checkpoint)

~~~
entee
Oh interesting. It's basically working in a similar way to Colchicine then.
Colchicine blows up the microtubules so the chromosomes don't segregate
properly. The combination of the two might be effective, though I suspect
there's a toxicity issue or something else I'm missing.

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abledon
Massage those breasts people! Most cancers hardly manifest themselves in parts
of the body where there is good blood flow to remove cell waste. Very little
cancer that originates in bicep/triceps or quadricep/glutes.

~~~
certmd
By all means, massage your breasts, but I'm not so sure your hypothesis holds
up. The paucity of cancers of skeletal muscle is more likely due to cell type
(terminally differentiated without much turnover) rather than vascular supply.
Carcinomas of the lung and colon are some of the most prevalent (probably
still would be even taking environmental factors into account) and those
organs get plenty of blood supply. Leukemias also aren't rare and are
literally bathed in blood flow.

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pcf
...was that the university's attempt of a wordplay? "Busting" and "breast" in
the same sentence? :)

