The compounds discovered in this patented technology could be used as a breast cancer therapeutic drug.
There are a few call signaling pathways that are heavily involved in the pathogenesis of cancer. Two of these pathways are the RAS pathway and the PI3K pathway, and both of these pathways are deregulated in the formation of human cancer. This deregulation leads to the over-production of GAB1. It has been shown that inhibiting upstream components of pathways complicit in tumorigenesis can reduce the rate of cancer. This is demonstrated in inhibitions of PI3K in the PI3K pathway. The invention has demonstrated that GAB1 inhibitors exist in a variety of compounds. They have the potential to reduce the rate of tumorigenesis in humans.
Background: Outside of biological treatments, there are other ways to treat cancer including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Surgery is usually only used in cancer that is isolated in one place and not metastasized cancer. Chemotherapy has ill side-effects due to it targeting many fast growing cells. Radiation therapy has the potential to kill even non harmful cells.
Within biological treatments, there are four main categories. The first is rituximab, which can target antigens on cancerous cells, which in turn can signal antigens on B-cells. These B-cells can then lyse the cancerous cells. One major advantage that the invention has over these types of therapies is versatility. In order to target specific antigens, the drug must be specifically made to do this. Antigens differ from cell to cell, so different drugs have to be made to target different cell types.
Another type of treatment involves removing the immune system’s inability to attack the body’s own cells. A drug such as ipillimumab can allow immune cells to attack body tissue. This opens up a large possibility of immune cells attacking tissue that is not cancerous or harmful. Therefore, a variety of autoimmune issues may emerge from this treatment path.
A third type of biological cancer treatment involves attaching a cell-killing substance onto an antibody. When the antibody binds onto a cancerous cell antigen, the cancer cell with intake the cell-killing substance, and promptly undergo cell death. Again, there is the chance that an ordinary, non cancerous cell may uptake this substance and undergo apoptosis.
The fourth treatment is inhibitory biological compounds like the invention. In addition to inhibiting GAB1, there are compounds which inhibit other molecules like growth effectors such as cetuximab and panitumumab. Unlike the invention, these treatments are usually specific to cancer that is caused by a mutation in the KRAS gene.
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Status: issued U.S. patents #10,448,637 and #11,432,547