Smart Therapies: New Ways to Combat Cancer

MAAZ GUL – Cancer: the second leading cause of death in the world following heart disease. It is something that many of us are painfully aware of, whether that be through knowing someone going through a cancer diagnosis or hearing so much about it on the news or from other people.

But, modern medicine has made great progress in understanding how cancer works and how to best treat and attempt to cure someone with the disease.

It Starts from One Cell

Yes, all cancers come from one cancerous cell, which is simply a cell that divides uncontrollably. The body has several ways to keep normal cells from dividing when they are not supposed to, but cancer cells have several mutations (or DNA modifications) that make them immune to these.

Before a cell becomes cancerous, its DNA mutates once. DNA is the template or blueprint of the cell, and when it mutates, the cell changes. This change could mean that the cell divides very fast, grows much bigger than it should, or moves to an area it should not be in (like a liver cell in the lung). 

Most humans actually have mutated cells inside of them, but these cells are quickly killed, shut down, or repaired. However, sometimes the mutation occurs in a way so that the body cannot do this. Afterward, the cell divides, and more and more mutations occur in the cell and its progeny. But, a cancer cell needs a number of changes to become cancerous as one mutation is not sufficient for it to grow uncontrollably. However, when enough of different types of mutations occur in the DNA, the cells become cancerous and begin to do this. 

Types and Treatments

Treating cancer is difficult to do. Depending on the type of cell that mutated and what kinds of mutations it contains, the cancer acts differently.

Some treatments like surgery (removing the cancer cells) or chemotherapy (kills cells that use the most energy – includes cancer cells since they divide the most) work on most cancers. But in recent years, medical research has shown us that using specific medicines for those cancers can help kill these cells at a more efficient rate. This has led to the birth of Smart Drugs or Smart Therapies.

Why Smart Drugs are Different

Chemotherapy works by killing all fast-growing cells, which includes skin cells, hair cells, and cancer cells. Smart Drugs get around this because they are designed to target cancerous cells over healthy ones. They do this by recognizing specific molecules on the surfaces of cancer cells.

An example of this is Her1 (Human Epidermal growth factor receptor 1), a protein receptor normally found on the surfaces of many cells in the body. In some cancers, however, it is present in very high amounts. Because of this, these cells can divide and grow much faster than usual.

So, scientists have taken advantage of this by making a drug, Tarceva, that targets cells with large amounts of the Her1 protein and shuts these cells down. It has been FDA approved and many people with Her1 positive cancers are living longer and even winning their battles thanks to this drug.

Not all cancers, however, have Her1 as their surface protein. There are many different types of cancers and therefore many different types of marker proteins. As of now, there are only a handful of these smart drugs that have been FDA approved, but with all the research going into finding new and more effective ways to deal with cancer, new Smart Therapies are sure to be made and combat cancers in this innovative way.

 Bleak outcomes are becoming more curable and the quality of life for people with cancer has never been better. Hopefully, with ongoing research and development, cancer treatments will keep improving and the number of cured cases will keep on rising.

Editor: Muhammad Siddiq

Photography Source: https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/this-drug-may-replace-chemotherapy-redefine-cancer-care/articleshow/69789357.cms