Genetic Chemistry & Cancer Drugs
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The developments taking place in genetic chemistry are making it possible to develop millions of cancer drugs in a matter of only a few weeks or moths, rather than the years it has taken in the past (NIH). In 1998 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a grant of $5.5 million to create Chemistry-Biology Centers at Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies in San Diego, and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. These centers were funded to develop and refine robotic drug production and screening technology emerging from the field of combinatorial chemistry. Using automated methods, chemists and biologists will be able to manufacture and test potential anti-cancer drugs hundreds of times faster than they could do using older techniques. Scores of cancer-causing or promoting genes have been discovered, and this has caused a demand for high-volume drug screening (NIH). Every newly discovered gene and the protein it codes for offers a new target for anti-cancer drugs, and finding drug molecules that are the right size and shape to fit the binding sites on these proteins has been a slow, tedious process in the past. Using the new technology, researchers can quickly produce a wide array of molecules and test them for anti-cancer activity. When they find a hit or a near-miss, this provides a template molecule which can be used to churn out hundreds of similar molecules. These molecules can be stored
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o set the maximum tolerated dose of a drug, and to predict the long-term effects in humans (Mandavilli). By looking at the toxicity in animals, scientists can predict the starting dose and acute toxicity in humans. Once the clinical trials begin, it is the human data that is important. The question is the relevance of animal toxicity studies: 90 days is a long time in a mouse, but humans may have to take the drug for decades.
An alternative to extensive toxicological testing in animals is to use the system employed in the UK, where trials are performed under clinical trial exemption (CTX) or doctors and dentists exemption (DDX) in which investigator-led trials can use the DDX criteria to begin rodent-only testing for short-term toxicity and the start dose for trial (mandavilli). Once the Cancer Research Council (CRC) has finished a successful trial in an academic setting, pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to begin large phase III trials, but often large companies go back and repeat toxicity tests in animals such as dogs and monkeys. The question is, if there is already prior data from animals, to which human data can now be added from academic trials, why is it necessary to repeat the studies in more animals to
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1656
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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