NEW DRUG COULD REPLACE CHEMO

A NEW type of drug that puts cancer cells to an eternal “sleep”, without the toxic side effects of traditional treatment, has been developed by Melbourne researchers.

The world-first drug discovery, which is the result of a decade of research from a team of Victorian medical research institutes, does not kill cancer cells like chemotherapy and radiation, but instead stops the cells from being able to divide and spread.

After showing the technique could quadruple the life expectancy of animals with blood cancer, the researchers — led by Walter and Eliza Institute of Medical Research — are now partnering with the pharmaceutical industry to turn this proof-of-concept drug into one suitable for humans.

Co-lead author, WEHI Associate Professor Tim Thomas, said the anti-cancer drug was the first to target two genes with a high potential to cause cancer, the KAT6A and KAT6B proteins.

Those proteins are mutated in aggressive blood cancer acute myeloid leukaemia, which kills about half of pa- tients within four months of diagnosis.

Prof Thomas said the protein targets were previously thought to be “undruggable”, following multiple unsuccessful attempts by large drug companies to screen 600,000 targets.

The Melbourne team screened almost 250,000 compounds searching for inhibitors of the cancer-causing process, which gave researchers clues to potential targets.

Over the next five years, Professor Jonathan Baell from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences took those clues to lead a series of trial-and-error tests, and the development of a drug that could fit their target like a jigsaw, to block this crucial interaction.

In preclinical models, their compound was able to put cancer cells to sleep by turning off their ability to kickstart the cycle of new cell growth.

“We’re harnessing the body’s defence mechanism for preventing cells becoming malignant by stopping them from multiplying in an unnatural way,” Prof Thomas said.

“This mechanism is used by a range of cancers, so we hope it will have wide application.”

While it stopped cancer in its tracks, the compound also spared health cells from the toxicities typically seen with other mainstay anti-cancer treatments.

Prof Thomas said chemotherapy and radiation worked by causing DNA damage in the cancer cells that were proliferating. But normal cells were affected quite severely.

“We’re hoping this approach can accurately target the cancer and leave healthy cells alone,” he said.

Leukaemia Foundation chief Bill Petch said he was hopeful the research would “quickly turn into a reality to save countless lives”.