Word: antitumor
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...patched, p53 activates other genes that cause the cell to self-destruct. Mutations in p53, which have been detected in more than 50% of all human cancers, are thus extremely dangerous. In laboratory cultures, some cancer cells that possess mutant versions of p53 do not die when challenged by antitumor agents, while those that have normal p53 genes go belly...
...even metastatic cancer may eventually be brought to heel. Squeezed into a tiny cubicle day after day at the National Cancer Institute, Patricia Steeg stares at colonies of aggressive breast-cancer cells that have shut down the protective nm23 gene. Soon she will squirt over these colonies newly identified antitumor compounds. Among them she hopes to find one, maybe more, that interferes with metastatic growth. A total of 14 of these compounds are already sitting in a freezer in her lab -- white crystals that cluster like snowflakes in the bottom of test tubes. If these fail to have an effect...
...first two patients -- a 46-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman -- both have terminal-stage melanoma, a form of skin cancer. A few months ago, doctors extracted tumor cells from the patients and inserted into the cells the gene that promotes the production of an antitumor hormone called tumor necrosis ^ factor (TNF). The genetically altered cells were grown in a lab and then injected last week into the thigh of each patient. The hope is that the TNF- primed cells will boost the body's immune system into more vigorous attack against the malignancy...
...second stage of the treatment, two weeks from now, doctors plan to remove white blood cells from the injection sites and nearby lymph nodes, grow them in a lab and transfuse them into the patients. Studies suggest that such cells will have developed a strong antitumor activity...
...piggyback gene into the genetic material of the TILs, which are then injected back into the bloodstream of the melanoma patients. If everything goes as planned, the activated TILs will home in on the tumors like guided missiles, attacking the cancerous cells and at the same time releasing the antitumor factor to help finish them...