Will this medicine help you?
The possibility of determining the cancer response to treatment in advance has been found
Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+
Scientists have explained why, in response to the same treatment, some malignant cells respond to therapy, while others do not. It's all about the properties of the cells themselves, which can be measured and then a prediction can be made.
Researchers from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) has identified the reasons why cancer reacts differently to treatment. It turned out that measuring some properties of cells reveals their susceptibility to drugs, on the basis of which scientists plan to predict the patient's response to treatment, according to the institute's website (Measuring cancer cell “fitness” reveals drug susceptibility).
Article by Kimmerling et al. Linking single-cell measurements of mass, growth rate, and gene expression published in the journal Genome Biology – VM.
The approach combines the measurement of cell mass and their growth rate together with the analysis of the expression of cell genes. Scientists believe that these are the main levers, acting on which it will be possible to weaken the protection of the tumor from treatment.
"By measuring these parameters, we can now assess the potential response of cancer cells to treatment and link it to the main molecular pathways," says researcher Alex Shalek.
In an experiment with brain cancer cells, scientists also found a number of specific "fingerprints" of gene expression that were associated with the growth and survival of cancer cells.
Now the researchers are faced with the task of checking which of them were most pronounced in those cells that turned out to be immune to the initial treatment and continued to grow.
The results open up two areas of application. In one case, scientists plan to use the method to develop inhibitor drugs for genes associated with the growth of cancer cells. Another area involves the use of cancer cell growth analysis to predict the effectiveness of an existing drug.
British scientists have also succeeded in predicting the effectiveness of cancer treatment. They have developed a laboratory blood test that will determine the success of the therapy and assess the potential for cancer recurrence. In addition, the test will be useful as a diagnostic in the early stages.
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