Targeted therapies for high-risk leukemias in children do not yet exist, but scientists at the University of Montreal and the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) are working on a drug discovery project on a large scale to achieve this.
In the laboratory led by Brian Wilhelm, Safia Safa-Tahar-Henni, a doctoral student in cancer genomics at UdeM, tested more than 11,000 molecules to determine their ability to inhibit the survival and growth of human leukemia cells.
The results of his work were published last October in the journal Leukemia.
The cells came from leukemia patient samples, laboratory-created human leukemia models, and established human leukemia cell lines. Marked differences were observed between the reaction of the latter and that of the other cells.
“We found that the use of leukemia cell lines can lead to misleading results in drug discovery,” said Brian Wilhelm. These cell lines do not grow in the same way as cells taken from patients.”
The effectiveness of drug discovery experiments therefore depends heavily on the source of the cells used in the trials, he added.
In total, scientists found 12 molecules with antileukemic potential.
“The molecules we selected are capable of killing not only various leukemia cells, but also multiple myeloma cells, another type of deadly blood cancer,” said Brian Wilhelm. In addition, these molecules were selected because they eliminate cancer cells without altering normal cells. This nuance is crucial for the development of targeted treatments that cause fewer side effects, which are terrible with the standard chemotherapy currently available.
IRIC scientists are currently designing dozens of new versions of these molecules for further study and hope to one day make significant progress in developing more effective cancer treatments.
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