Breast cancer is a serious problem around t
he world and in the United states. It has been estimated that one in eight people, both men and women will develop breast cancer. Even with advancements in treatment and early screening, more than 40,00 deaths are attributed to breast cancer anually.
African Americans have the highest mortality rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S. for most cancers. As a group, African Americans continue to be less likely than whites to survive five years at each stage for most cancer diagnoses. But there may be a new method of dealing with breast cancer in the future. Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara have discovered and extracted a drug derived from the evergreen tree that may be used to treat one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer. The drug is a synthetic derivative of maytansine, a molecule found in an evergreen tree in the genera Maytenus, which grows on several continents around the globe.
The results were reported in the October issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, authored by a team of UCSB researchers conducted in the laboratories of Mary Ann Jordan and Leslie Wilson, professors in UCSB’s department of cellular, molecular and developmental biology.
Early clinical trials indicate that the drug shrank tumors of one-third of the patients in the breast cancer study. Prior research suggested that the drug was too dangerous for human use because it was equally toxic to non-cancerous cells. Now, by combining the substance with an antibody caused the drug to target only cancer cells, scientists have been able to greatly reduce its toxicity.
The drug works by targeting the microtubules of cancer cells. Microtubules grow quickly and help cancer cells divide and multiply. The drug has yet to be approved by the FDA. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
