9 Ridiculous Rules About Cancer Research Discoveries

Матеріал з Луцький НВК "Гімназія №14"

Many volunteers world-wide commit themselves to raising funds for cancer research and cancer charities. Many hundreds of thousands more work in the industry as carers, or researching, prescribing, diagnosing and manufacturing drugs. Huge companies spend fortunes on cancer research. After so long and a lot of billions spent what exactly has cancer research revealed?

There happen to be regular breakthroughs in our knowledge of cancer, but little progress in its treatment. Modern research into cancer began within the 1940's and 50's when scientists isolated substances that killed cancer cells growing in a petri dish, or leukaemia cells in laboratory mice. Early successes in chemotherapy set the pace and received much media exposure, despite the fact that they only applied to 5% of cancer treatments at most.

Serving humanity by solving its major diseases has a celebrity status, there is a lot of kudos and an air of Hollywood associated with such things. Cancer research is high profile activity and every now and then a scientific treatment solutions are discovered that gains wide recognition, such as the HPV-16 trial, but it only applies itself to the treatment of a small number of cancers. Mass-media hype is involved in the problem of how we see cancer. Early discoveries set up an expectation that there was a cure-all treatment, a 'magic bullet' that would make its discoverer famous by curing cancer around the world. The idea stems in part from aspirin, the original bullet that magically finds its way to the pain and diminishes it.

In the 1950's and 60's huge and expensive research projects were setup to test every known substance to find out if it effected cancer cells. You might remember the discovery of the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharansus Roseus), which revealed alkaloids (vinblastine and vincristine) which are still utilized in chemotherapy today. Taxol, a remedy for ovarian and breast cancer originally came from the Pacific Yew tree. A therapy for testicular cancer and small-cell lung cancer called 'Etoposide' was derived from the May apple. In 'Plants Used Against Cancer' by Jonathan Hartwell over 3,000 plants are identified from medical and folklore sources for treating cancer, about half of that have been shown to have some impact on cancer cells in a test tube.

When these plants are made into synthetic drugs, single chemicals are isolated as well as the rest of the plant may be thrown away. The medicinally active molecules are extracted from the plant and modified until they may be chemically unique. Then the compound is patented, given a brand name and tested.

In the first phase it's going to generally be tested on animals, the second phase will decide dosage levels as well as in phase 3 it's tested on people. By the time it is approved by the Federal Drugs Authority (in U.S.A.) or perhaps the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (M.H.R.A.) in Britain, the development costs for a whole new drug can reach five hundred million dollars, which eventually must be recouped from the consumer.