Killing cancer.

[Donald the Great]

Re: Killing cancer.

Australian immunologist Ian Frazer and virologist Jian Zhou developed and patented the basic technology behind the HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix against cervical cancer at the University of Queensland in 2005. The first vaccines ever designed to prevent a cancer.

Public donations contributed to the initial seed funding to Professor Ian Frazer’s research into the cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine. Over 150 million doses of vaccine have been delivered worldwide to date. Thanks to an universal immunisation program, Australia is set to be the first country to effectively eliminate cervical cancer..

[Donald the Great]

Re: Killing cancer.

Cancer Scientists at Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Western Australia, the Children’s Medical Research Institute in Sydney and the Max Plank Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, have developed a way to wrap artificial proteins around the ends of chromosomes to effectively block the uncontrolled growth that occurs with most cancers.
Associate Professor Oliver Rackham (see below) team at the Perkins Institute has engineered proteins that effectively clamp tightly around the end of the single stranded DNA in the chromosome.

“A normal cell grows for just the right amount of time that is required for us to develop and maintain our bodies.

“They control their growth with a molecular counting mechanism that tells the cell how old it is. This occurs on the ends of our chromosomes which have little caps on them. Each time the cell divides a little bit at the cap of the chromosome disappears. Once the caps shrink to a certain length the cell knows that it has divided too many times and it will then stop growing or die.

“However, cancer cells subvert the counting mechanism that shrinks the ends of our chromosomes so cancer cells keep replicating indefinitely.

“The way cancer cells avoid this control mechanism is by producing an enzyme called telomerase which we need when we are babies and growing very fast but which we stop producing when we stop rapidly growing,” he said.

Professor Rackham says about 90% of cancer cells have the telomerase enzyme, when they shouldn’t.

[Donald the Great]

Re: Killing cancer.

How good is this news from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation. (ACRF).

In a world first, Australian scientists have discovered a new type of anti-cancer drug that can put cancer cells into a permanent sleep, without the harmful side-effects caused by conventional cancer therapies.

Published on August 3 in the journal Nature, the research reveals the first class of anti-cancer drugs that work by putting the cancer cell to sleep – arresting tumour growth and spread without damaging the cells’ DNA.

The new class of drugs could provide an exciting alternative for people with cancer, and has already shown great promise in halting cancer progression in models of blood and liver cancers, as well as in delaying cancer relapse.

[Donald the Great]

Re: Killing cancer.

Innovations in cancer treatment are incredible, if you have been unfortunate enough to require the services of a cancer unit then you probably know what i mean, i underwent radio/chemo therapy last year for oral cancer and cancer of the lymph nodes. I dont fully understand the mechanics of these machines but they truly are awesome and advances in the treatment of cancer have come such a long way in the past 30 years. We should all consider donating to cancer research,you never know when you may need the help of these pioneering people

[Donald the Great]

There have been some amazing breakthrus in the treatment of this incidious disease that we feel it warrants its own subject.