• Question: in what ways could you help cancer research with the money and experience

    Asked by JJMD to Eleni, Hannah, Jenny, Oli, Steven on 4 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by lemon.
    • Photo: Jenny Batson

      Jenny Batson answered on 4 Nov 2016:

      Hi
      We’re researching new drugs that inhibit blood vessel growth, which is needed for almost all solid tumours to grow. We’re investigating how our compounds affect prostate, lung, breast and colon cancer cells to find out which chemical works best and which cancer responds best. We’re also looking at a rare cancer called mesothelioma, which only affects a few people (less than 1% of total cancer cases) but there is no current treatment so we really need new drugs!
      Jenny

    • Photo: Oliver Charity

      Oliver Charity answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      Hi JJMD,

      I studied cancer at University, and found it very interesting. A lot of the research focusses on when regular every day cells have lost control of certain things, like cell growth and replication. In our group we look at a bug called Salmonella, and this bacterium is probably one of the best adapted to humans. It has been infecting us ever since we existed, and because of this is interacts with our immune system in specific ways.

      If you take out of all Salmonella’s nasty disease causing bits, it still interacts with your immune system, so recently people have been using this weakend Salmonella to start immune responses, and using it to target cancer cells, killing them and not our healthy cells!

      The same thing is true for viruses, they can be engineered to target cancer cells, as viruses can be made to recognise cancer cells and not healthy cells!

      Oli

    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      Hi JJMD,

      So I am at one of the earliest stages in drug development, just behind the people who identify new targets that could potentially be used to treat cancer. I’m working on drugs which bind to 4 stranded DNA structures called G-quadruplexes. Binding drugs to these structures can ‘turn off’ genes that get switched on when cells become cancerous. Drugs that target these structures can also stop an enzyme called telomerase from working, which is responsible for making the cancer cells immortal (as long at they get food they never die). Stopping this enzyme from working causes damage to the DNA inside the cancer cells, causing them to die! This enzyme is not present in healthy cells, yet is used in around 90% of cancer cells, so it’s quite an exciting target for anti-cancer drugs.

      The problems are that they are a very new discovery, so we don’t really understand what these G-quadruplexes do… and targeting them with drugs is hard because you want to target a single G-quadruplex and nothing else in the body (DNA or otherwise). Also making molecules that can go inside cells to target this DNA sleectively is hard! This is why lots of researchers like myself are trying to work on making drugs that target these structures!

      Steve

    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      Hi JJMD,

      So I am at one of the earliest stages in drug development, just behind the people who identify new targets that could potentially be used to treat cancer. I’m working on drugs which bind to 4 stranded DNA structures called G-quadruplexes. Binding drugs to these structures can ‘turn off’ genes that get switched on when cells become cancerous. Drugs that target these structures can also stop an enzyme called telomerase from working, which is responsible for making the cancer cells immortal (as long at they get food they never die). Stopping this enzyme from working causes damage to the DNA inside the cancer cells, causing them to die! This enzyme is not present in healthy cells, yet is used in around 90% of cancer cells, so it’s quite an exciting target for anti-cancer drugs, as it could in theory work against 90% of all cancers!

      The problems are that G-quadruplex DNA is a very new discovery, so we don’t really understand what they do… and targeting them with drugs is hard because you want to target a single G-quadruplex and nothing else in the body (DNA or otherwise). Also making molecules that can go inside cells to target this DNA selectively is hard! This is why lots of researchers like myself are trying to work on making drugs that target these structures!

      Steve

    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Hi JJMD,

      I’m not a cancer specialist as my research looks into making new treatments for neglected tropical diseases, caused by parasites. I do think we desperately need to come up with new treatment options for all the different types of cancer. Jenny, Oli and Steve all have great answers, hopefully their research might be able to help cancer patients in the future!

      Hannah

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