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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Tricyclic Antidepressant Imipramine May Combat Small Cell Lung Cancer (Stanford University School of Medicine)

English: Cancer cells photographed by camera a...
English: Cancer cells photographed by camera attached to microscope in time-lapse manner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
FDA-approved antidepressant may combat deadly form of lung cancer, study finds - Office of Communications & Public Affairs - Stanford University School of Medicine

Excerpts:

"...The phase-2 trial is now recruiting participants with small-cell lung cancer and other, similar conditions like aggressive gastrointestinal neuroendocrine cancers. The “repositioning” of an existing drug to treat a disorder other than the one for which it was originally approved is an example of how extremely large genetic and biological databases are changing the face of medicine."

"...Specifically, the drugs activated a cellular self-destruct pathway that killed the cancer cells."

"...The pipeline works by scanning the hundreds of thousands of gene-expression profiles (gathered by multiple researchers and stored in large databases) across many different cell types and tissues — some normal and some diseased, some treated with medications and some not. Alone, these profiles may not mean much to any one investigator or group, but when viewed together, researchers can pick out previously unsuspected patterns and trends."

"Jahchan tested the effect of a tricyclic antidepressant called imipramine on human small-cell lung cancer cells grown in the laboratory and growing as tumors in laboratory mice. She found that the drug was able to potently activate a self-destruction pathway in the cancer cells and to slow or block metastases in the animals. The drug maintained its effectiveness regardless of whether the cancer cells had previously been exposed, and become resistant, to traditional chemotherapy treatments. Another drug, an antihistamine called promethazine, identified by the bioinformatics screen, also exhibited cancer-cell-killing abilities."

"Further investigation showed that the drugs appear to work through a class of molecule on the cancer cells’ surfaces called G-protein-coupled receptors, but the researchers are continuing to investigate exactly how the drugs specifically kill neuroendocrine cancer cells."

See more at: http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/september/antidepressant.html#sthash.OzJhnFka.dpuf

Link to full article here
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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Lab Notes: Chemo Patients Going to the Dogs

English: Author: Andrew Ryzhkov Rotation of th...
English: Author: Andrew Ryzhkov Rotation of the model of the Paclitaxel molecule generated by the ViewMol3D program. http://redandr.ca/vm3/viewmol3d_gallery.htm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lab Notes: Chemo Patients Going to the Dogs: "From Dog Food to Chemo?

From Dog Food to Chemo?
"A chemical commonly used as a preservative in dog food prevented the development of peripheral neuropathy associated with treatment with paclitaxel (Taxol) in a mouse model.
The majority of patients given paclitaxel for malignancies such as breast cancer experience painful neuropathy, which can be dose-limiting and can seriously impair quality of life. So a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins led by Ahmet Hoke, MD, PhD, screened some 2,000 compounds for neuroprotective effects in various cell lines.
They identified the antioxidant ethoxyquin -- approved by the FDA for use in animal feed 50 years ago -- as having the most pronounced effects. When they co-administered ethoxyquin with paclitaxel in mice, the intraepidermal nerve fiber damage that predictably occurs in the animals' paws didn't develop.
Hoke's team then were able to identify heat shock protein 90 as the molecule that mediated the neuroprotection through its effects on the levels of two proteins known as ATXN2 and SF3B2.
These findings suggest that ethoxyquin and its derivatives might be suitable for development to help prevent chemotherapy-induced nerve damage in the clinical setting, the researchers suggested in the Annals of Neurology."
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Pharmacy History

"The earliest known compilation of medicinal substances was ARIANA the Sushruta Samhita, an Indian Ayurvedic treatise attributed to Sushruta in the 6th century BC. However, the earliest text as preserved dates to the 3rd or 4th century AD.
Many Sumerian (late 6th millennium BC - early 2nd millennium BC) cuneiform clay tablets record prescriptions for medicine.[3]

Ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge was recorded in various papyri such as the Ebers Papyrus of 1550 BC, and the Edwin Smith Papyrus of the 16th century BC.

The earliest known Chinese manual on materia medica is the Shennong Bencao Jing (The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic), dating back to the 1st century AD. It was compiled during the Han dynasty and was attributed to the mythical Shennong. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript "Recipes for 52 Ailments", found in the Mawangdui tomb, sealed in 168 BC. Further details on Chinese pharmacy can be found in the Pharmacy in China article."

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy#History_of_pharmacy

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