Great discovery for cancer in general: Study Identifies Hundreds of Potential Targets for Cancer Drugs

[Maxone73]

As usual, let's hope they will soon find also viable ways to attack them, but lately researchers have really been discovering a lot about cancer biology (very interesting what the article says about HSP90 protein, which is expressed by PCa as well, and how they were able to exploit it in mice...)

cancer.gov/news-events/canc...

proteomics.cancer.gov/progr...

[PresidentOfBelgium]

Thank you for sharing 👍👍👍

[jeetu_g27]

Thanks a lot for sharing latest updates ..

[street-air]

this is kind of depressing to me as it illustrates the amount of work required to find a cure. A single drug candidate can take a decade to pass through trials and the number of patients willing to submit to well funded and run trials is limited. Having so many possible targets sure, great, but few can be properly tested in parallel once they pass the basic petri dish filter. Without better understanding of the cancer itself than humans appear to possess, and precision bombing (so to speak) there may be decades of busywork ahead to identify a near-cure.

[Maxone73 in reply to street-air]

I see it differently. With recent advancements, these systems are increasingly capable of predicting which targets are the most promising with greater precision. Software like AlphaFold 3 has significantly accelerated drug development. Traditionally, the discovery stage took around 2–3 years, but now, thanks to AI, we’re talking about weeks. AI-discovered drugs entered phase 1 trials as early as 2020, and since then, our technologies have evolved at least fivefold. While I agree that other phases of drug development should also be accelerated—since we now have better predictive tools for side effects and other factors—that will come in time. Additionally, many trials are being extended, with new participants enrolled even after reaching target enrollment. Another exciting development is the potential renaming of cancers. For example, instead of separate breast or prostate cancer classifications, we might group them by genetic mutations, such as 'BRCA cancers.' This would allow the same drug to be tested across all cancers driven by BRCA mutations, speeding up both testing and approval processes.

[street-air in reply to Maxone73]

its definitely fast moving and exciting however for anyone soon to hit stage 4 or in stage 4 even if a cure was in a lab today, the long approval pipeline and need to show 5 year plus survival etc means it all comes too late. I am happy my teens may - probably - not have to face stage 4 incurable cancer? amazing. but thats the kind of time scales even optimistic ones we are probably facing. I would like to be wrong but you know, a certain self proclaimed genius has been promising AI that can drive cars for a decade now and its still in development hell.

[Maxone73 in reply to street-air]

Clinical trials, it's not a matter of time, but of money. Compassionate use could already be applied if there are promising results even if the drug is still being tested. What we need to push for is phase 1. Few weeks ago the UK cancer foundation, through Sheffield Uni, has found a very promising (and cheap) way it seems, to prolong hormone sensitive phase in PCa, the are ready and willing to start phase 1. In Australia, you have exciting news on radioligands, Cu 67 reached a complete response on the first patient treated with 2 doses. I know it is frustrating from one side, I don't want to die young and my DNA mutation makes me mad, but I think we should factor in the fact that we are not that far from at least make it a chronic disease.

I have read an interview with some doctors (take it as anecdotal) that were discussing the statistics. They were curious about the next update of those survival statistics we already know, because their feeling was that the famous 30% at 5 years for stage IV is now around 50% since triplet therapy started to become the standard (which would reflect the numbers from ARASENS trial, 63% at 4 years).

[Scout4answers]

Love your optimistic approach.

[Maxone73 in reply to Scout4answers]

It doesn't cost anything, and the end result will be the same regardless!

[Scout4answers]

I disagree, I think a positive mental state gives you an advantage, as your body responds in a positive way. Pure Voo Doo maybe, but that is how I think...

[Maxone73 in reply to Scout4answers]

Even better then!