ISRIB Miracle Drug?

[Brbnbrn]

Has anyone heard of ISRIB?

[sharoncrayn]

Dr. Walker's drug at UCSF. Research on it has been ongoing for years.

[kapakahi]

ucsf.edu/news/2020/12/41920...

ucsf.edu/news/2018/05/41033...

This is my own synopsis of that second article, and it's regrettably possible that I got it wrong, but here goes.

What's interesting in the second article (albeit from 2018, so I don't know if there's been any progress or false hopes) is that aggressive cancer cells can have mutations in a gene (MYC) that stimulate cancer growth and a gene (PTEN) that suppresses tumors. The MYC mutation sends that cancer-feeding gene into overdrive while the PTEN mutation disables that cancer-supressing gene. The cancer cells, freed of constraints on their growth, then run the lethal risk of oversynthesizing protein, but conveniently for them, those mutations also change a protein called eIF2a into P-eIF2a, and that suppresses protein synthesis, and the cancer cells just keep growing on lower protein synthesis. P-eIF2a levels turn out to be a strong indication of a bad ending for men with MYC/PTEN mutation cancers.

As I understand it, the ISRIB reverses the protein synthesis suppression of P-eIF2a, thereby causing the cancer cells to go wild with protein and then self-destruct. And apparently it works within weeks.

As far as I know (and this is the first I've heard about it), it's worked only in vitro and in mice. I wonder if there's been any advances in this possible treatment since 2018. Most likely it's been well-discussed here but I couldn't find much about it.

And it's way past midnight, when I'm operating on half my usual IQ. I could use an ISRIB shot to my brain right about now.

[Brbnbrn]

Thank you so much for the information!