Human Trials Planned for Promising New Mesothelioma Drug
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Human Trials Planned for Promising New Mesothelioma Drug

ByAlex Strauss

The Australian Asbestos Diseases Research Institute says it is ready to begin human trials on what its lead researcher calls the first significant advance in mesothelioma treatment in a decade. More than three years in development, TargomiRs utilizes a unique ‘minicell’ delivery system to insert a synthetic form of missing genetic material into mesothelioma cells. Like a number of other types of cancer, mesothelioma cells are missing a family of microRNAs critical to regulating the cellular life cycle. TargomiRs restores these microRNAs. In mice with human-derived mesothelioma, TargomiRs produced a “remarkable inhibition of tumour growth”, according to the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute. “The last significant development in the treatment of mesothelioma occurred ten years ago,” ADRI director Nico van Zandwijk…

Firefly Compound Guides Mesothelioma Treatment
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Firefly Compound Guides Mesothelioma Treatment

ByAlex Strauss

An oxidative enzyme derived from fireflies may help shed light on a new treatment for mesothelioma. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, one of the country’s top cancer centers, have just released their findings on the use of firefly luciferase as a guide for a heat-based treatment of  mesothelioma. Firefly luciferase is an enzyme responsible for the bioluminescence of fireflies.  When the enzyme is isolated and treated, it can be made to bind with certain biomarkers, causing cells with these markers to glow. The technique has opened the door for bioluminescence imaging, a precision imaging method that works at the molecular level. In the new study, mesothelioma cells were treated with a specially-prepared firefly luciferase gene and their level of…

Mixed Results for Mesothelioma From Targeted Therapies
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Mixed Results for Mesothelioma From Targeted Therapies

ByAlex Strauss

A review of recent clinical trials on various targeted therapies for malignant mesothelioma indicates that, while some are helpful, none are likely to become standard treatments yet. In an article in the international journal Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology, a pair of Danish researchers reported their analysis of 32 clinical trials on 17 different targeted agents for mesothelioma. A targeted agent is a medication that takes aim at a specific cellular function within mesothelioma tumor cells. Some inhibit proteins needed for growth or replication. Others may attack the formation of blood vessels or other structures that feed the cancer cells. The extensive look at clinical trials of these targeted agents found that, overall, those that were used as a first-line treatment…

Over Forty Clinical Trials for Mesothelioma
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Over Forty Clinical Trials for Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Mesothelioma is still a difficult cancer to treat. Today, there are at least 42 active clinical trials for mesothelioma, each trying to demonstrate a better treatment outcome than standard therapies. While there are still trials of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, today the emphasis is on newer therapies that can better target the tumor cells instead of indiscriminately harming cancer and healthy cells alike. These better targeted therapies go by different names depending on the type and include terms like: anti-cytokine, antiangiogenesis, enzyme inhibitor therapy, kinase inhibitor therapy, gene therapy, biological therapy, and immune therapy. As of March 2009 there were at least sixteen trials of these newer therapies plus eight combination regimes of a newer therapy and chemotherapy and another…