Cancer pill AOH1996 shows promise in annihilating all solid tumours | Hacker News Reader

Cancer pill AOH1996 shows promise in annihilating all solid tumours

prnewswire.com

58 pointsjjordan20 comments

>> However, the cancer-killing pill Malkas has been developing over the past two decades, AOH1996, targets a cancerous variant of PCNA, a protein that in its mutated form is critical in DNA replication and repair of all expanding tumors

But it's still a single pathway. Cancer has abilities to circumvent most pathways, after a time.

Targeting multiple pathways will be the answer, but FDA is so slow at allowing multiple-target clinical trials. Keytruda thus far, has been the best to believe in combining with many other products, and get clinical trials going. Sure, they have to partner with competitors, but this (multi-pathways) is the true path to stopping cancer.

Why isn't it enough to combine a few approved drugs to target multiple pathways ?

According to the article, this pathway is the same for all "expanding tumors":

"PCNA is like a major airline terminal hub containing multiple plane gates. Data suggests PCNA is uniquely altered in cancer cells, and this fact allowed us to design a drug that targeted only the form of PCNA in cancer cells. Our cancer-killing pill is like a snowstorm that closes a key airline hub, shutting down all flights in and out only in planes carrying cancer cells..."

This may be one pathway that cancers can't circumvent.

Consider taxol resistance. Taxols prevent microtubule formation, but yet, somehow, cells find a way to overcome this.

They have only tested this in mice.

>> We tested the anticancer activity of AOH1996 in mice bearing xenograft tumors derived from either neuroblastoma, breast cancer, or small cell lung cancer cells

Cell function:

https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-94...

Trials:

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trial...

I really hope this new chemo is powerful and adds to the list of agents we have to help stop metastatic cancer.

There is a new cancer cure every year for more than a decade now but still nothing really substantiates in terms of saving people's lives at scale. This research is promising but authors of such news should feel morally obligated to also mention realistically how far away in future will be the medicine based on this research given that there are people out there with limited time on their hands who might start getting their hopes up by reading these.

It's understandable to be frustrated by our lack of a magic bullet to cure cancer, but unfortunately it's not one disease but a whole range of different diseases. That said, I would offer Checkpoint Inhibitors[1] as an example of a whole new class of meds from recent years that have helped save many, many people.

1: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunoth...

That’s just not true.

Metastatic melanoma was a death sentence as little as 10 years ago. Now, five year survival rates are improving thanks to checkpoint inhibitors and improved radiosurgery.

Improving how much? Feom what I've seen its still mostly a death sentence

With one of the checkmate trials, the median 5 year survival rate for patients taking nivolumab and ipilimumab is 5 years. The patients in this study trended older and had inoperable brain mets.

The survival rate previously was something like 9-12 months.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1910836

More recent 3- and 4-year Phase 3 CheckMate metastatic non-small cell lung cancer trial results were also good, if less dramatic.

ESMO summary: https://dailyreporter.esmo.org/european-lung-cancer-congress...

4-year trial PR: https://news.bms.com/news/details/2023/Four-Year-Outcomes-fr...

3-year trial abstract: https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2023.41.16_suppl.8521

Well it still sounds like a death sentence. Just a few your years

I have a friend that was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2018.

Still alive and healthy.

I'd like to sign up my friend who has about 3 years left for some clinical trials.

Link to paper here: https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-94...

Too early to draw any conclusions

Exactly. It's phase I testing. All they know is it doesn't seem to kill mice or some healthy cells in a Petri dish. Despite this being apparently a highly-targeted molecule, there is always the potential for it to cause side-effects, injuries, or fatalities in whole humans. It shows promise but wake me up when it passes phase III.

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