CancerBio 3 Flashcards
Doll and Hill
Linked smoking to lung cancer British
Two Stage Carcinogenesis
Mutation then inflammation. Both required for cancer growth
Hit?
A stage in cancer or event
Who was one of the first scientists to clarify the specific genes and pathways that facilitate tummor cell proliferation?
Bert Volgelstein was at John Hopkins and he studied colon cancer. He compared the DNA ofa cancer cell to a normal cell of the same patient. He found that the mutated genes were responsible for the disease. He identified several genetic mutations and found the sequence/timeline of the mutations. The volgegram
How was the multistage theory of carcinogenesis established
Volgelsteins work led rise to multiple genes causing cancer. Each mutation is a stage that causes leading up to cancer. Not just one mutation.
What is Gleevec
Gleevac is active against a gene that causes CML or a deadly type of leukemia. It was extremely popular and caught the publics attention. It was good at iradicating white blood cells. It fueled the research for targeted cancer drugs.
BCR/abl
In what kind of genes do the majority of mutations occur in tumors?
Tumor suppressor genes
Tumor suppressor genes
When they are damaged, they fail to stop division of cancer cells. They are like the opposite of oncogenes. They are the “breaks” of cancer paired with the “gas” of oncogenes. So the combination of both give rise to cancer.
Dr. Weinberg describes that all tumors essentially have two defects. What are these defects?
He says that tumors have defects in the oncogene and in the tumor suppressor genes. THe oncogenes promote cell division, the tumor suppressor genes stop cell division. When the suppressor gene is defected, there are no “breaks” and we have a lot of cell division with to regulation.
ALK.
Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase The Alk/EML4 Fusion Protein is an inversion of the chromosome 2p with the EML4 and ALK genes. This gives rise to non-small-cell lung cancer.
Novartis’ drug ‘LDK’
This drug works by filling a pocket in a protein inside the cancer cell. It blocks the growth signals. “Jamming a lock with a broken key”. This has to be very specific because it can’t effect other systems.
What causes drug resistance in cancer
Cancer cells are constantly mutating and evolving. So the genetic diversity at day 1 is different from 5 years from then. So the evergrowing mutation makes it hard to prevent resistance. The cancer can evolve around the durgs and resist them in “almost every case”.
Targeted therapies. Life extension and success rate
It extended their lives by about 7 months. An average of 9 out of 10 experimental compounds fail.
What kind of chemicals are in cigarette smoke?
Benzopurene —> pah
The way benzopyrene causes cancer is by becoming chemically active in the liver and transforming into DNA adducts that cause mutations and malignant transformations. It can change the DNA during replication messing up the GC pairings.
Bernardo Rammazzini
Rammazzini focused on research on diseases suffered by workers. He linked diseases with occupations. He systematized the known knowledge as well as his own research in De Morbis Artificum Diatriba. He linked the different diseases to trends in the (work) environment.
What is a ‘cancer cluster
cancer cluster is a larger than expected number of cancer cases in a group of people in similar geographic locations over a period of time. This helps to identify potential causes of cancer through exposure to chemicals, radiation, or other environmental factors.
Who was the geneticist that identified the BRCA1 locus
Mary-Claire King discovered the BRCA1 gene locus linked with breast cancer.
She used families with breast cancer and used their cancer to track inheritance. She looked at the lineage of breast cancers and try to find the the genes responsible. On chromosome 17, she found the BRCA gene mutation. This mutation is linked to a 70% chance of breast cancer and a 30% of ovarian cancer. They can detect via the blood, and then decide to either get routine checkups or remove the breast before it develops.
William Coley?
William Coley is a bone surgeon who studied cancer immunotherapy. He caused infections to fight cancer. His therapy, called Coley’s toxins, used the immune to activate the immune system to fight the disease. He injected a collection of infectious bacteria into patients to gain a response.
Stephan Rosenberg?
Rosenberg has been studying immunotherapy treatments since the 1970s. Previously a surgeon, he also found a patient to be self-healed of a tumor. Like Coley, he believed it was due to immune cels or lymphocytes. He was able to treat with different drugs to cause an immune response. He also discovered that T Cells are active against cancer. He extracted them from a cancer patient, grow them in a lab, and infuse them back into the patients body to fight the cancer.
CAR T therapy
Chimeric antigen receptor T cells can be used to treat leukemia and lymphoma.
Some T-cells can have trouble identifying the cancer cells. They appear to have a “blindfold” that prevents them from identifying the the dangerous cell. Dr. June’s drug showed the cancer cells to the immune cells. This used a genetic remodeling of a patients immune cell. The patient was Emily a child with leukemia. The article writes that they combine antigen binding domains (scFv) with the signal domains of the TCR.
