Expanding the therapeutic arsenal.Two experimental pills can send chronic myeloid leukemia myeloid leukemia n. See myelogenous leukemia. into remission in some patients who don't benefit from the best available medicine, early results from three studies show. In many patients with this blood cancer, the genes encoding proteins called Bcr and Abl become fused. This genetic mutation Noun 1. genetic mutation - (genetics) any event that changes genetic structure; any alteration in the inherited nucleic acid sequence of the genotype of an organism chromosomal mutation, mutation results in a defective protein, Bcr-Abl, that causes runaway proliferation of white blood cells White blood cells A group of several cell types that occur in the bloodstream and are essential for a properly functioning immune system. Mentioned in: Abscess Incision & Drainage, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Complement Deficiencies . Researchers reported g years ago that the drug imatinib, also called Gleevec, disables the rogue Bcr-Abl protein and stops cell replication (SN: 12/11/99, p. 372). Imatinib halts the cancer in more than 80 percent of patients, says Moshe Talpaz of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. However, some patients acquire additional changes in Bcr-Abl, become resistant to imatinib's effects, and relapse. Previous research found that a new drug dubbed BMS-254825 stops such imatinib-resistant cancer in mice (SN: 7/17/04,p. 38). The drug is made by Bristol-Myers Squibb of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . Talpaz teamed with Charles L. Sawyers of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Howard Hughes Medical Institute, (HHMI), nonprofit medical research organization founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes and largly funded from proceeds of the 1984–85 sale of Hughes Aircraft. Headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md. at the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. in two trials to assess BMS-254825's effects in people with leukemia that was either resistant to imatinib or had already progressed to late stages, in which imatinib is generally not effective. In one trial, Sawyers reports, 31 of 36 imatinib-resistant patients in an early phase of leukemia saw their white blood counts return to normal after treatment with BMS-254825. In a second trial, the researchers gave BMS-254825 to 29 patients with more-advanced leukemia. Most made progress against the disease, Talpaz says, but he cautions that it is too early to know whether the drug will remain effective in such patients. In a separate trial, another experimental drug called AMN Amn abbr. airman 107 reduced the number of cancerous cells in the blood and marrow of roughly half of 65 people with chronic myeloid leukemia, reports Francis E. Giles, also of M.D. Anderson. AMN107 and imatinib are made by Novartis Pharmaceuticals of East Hanover. |
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