Target of new cancer treatment valid for breast as well as blood cancers: study

One more piece of the puzzle has fallen into place behind a new drug whose anti-cancer potential was developed at the University of Alberta and is set to begin human trials this year, thanks to newly published research.

“The results provide more justification and rationale for starting the clinical trial in May,” said first author John Mackey, professor and director of oncology clinical trials in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. “It’s another exciting stepping stone to finding out if this is going to be a new cancer treatment.”

The drug PCLX-001 is designed to selectively kill cancer cells by targeting enzymes involved in myristoylation, a process key to the cell signalling system that is often defective in cancer cells. The molecule was originally developed by the University of Dundee as a treatment for African sleeping sickness. U of A cell biologist Luc Berthiaume was the first to realize it could work against cancer.

For this study, Mackey and his collaborators examined breast tumours from more than 700 women who had participated in a worldwide clinical trial for another drug in 1998. They found that 28 per cent of the tumours contained the enzyme N-myristoyltransferase 2 (NMT2), and that the patients who had those tumours were more likely to die during the following 10 years. 

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