Therapy Analysis - Telomerase as a potential therapeutic target
Telomerase
The significance of cancer in the modern world needs no introduction. 7.6 million people died from cancer in 2007, accounting for roughly 13% of all deaths. In some Western countries such as the USA and the UK, cancer is now overtaking cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death. One in three people can now expect to suffer cancer at some stage in their lifetime, with one in four going on to die from the disease. In developing countries, the incidence is far lower, largely due to higher mortality from infectious diseases. However, as control over the spread of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis improves, the incidence of cancer is expected to rise in these regions. Clearly, there is a vast market available for any effective cancer treatment.
Existing treatment options for cancer include surgery, whereby nonhaematological solid cancers are physically removed; chemotherapy, utilizing cytotoxic drugs to target rapidly dividing cells; radiation therapy, using ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells; immunotherapy, where the host's own immune system is induced to fight the cancer and experimental therapies such as angiostatic treatments and gene therapy. Many cancers are multifactorial, with contributing factors being infectious agents, toxic chemicals, and the activation of previously-silenced or regulated cancer-causing genes within the body, so-called oncogenes. Oncogenes activated in cancer cells can give them their distinctive new properties such as overactive growth, division, and protection against apoptosis. Tumour suppressor genes on the other hand are frequently deactivated in cancer cells, resulting in the loss of normal functions and features such as accurate DNA replication, cell cycle checkpoints and adhesion molecules. Transformed cancer cells may also exhibit other features, such as the activation of the chromosome-capping enzyme, telomerase.
