New agent causes leukemia cell death
I found this article about a method for inhibiting leukemia cells.
A team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center has discovered an entirely new mechanism of action for a novel pharmacological agent currently in clinical trials in patients - the kinase inhibitor BAY 43-9006 - which was designed to disrupt the survival pathways of tumor cells....
"We were surprised to find that the killing effects of Bay 43-9006 in human leukemia cells had very little to do with inhibition of the Raf-1 pathway," Grant said. "Instead, the major mechanism of lethality of this compound involved down-regulation of a protein known as Mcl-1, which plays a critical role in protecting leukemic cells from apoptosis.
Source: Medicalnewstoday.com
