Guest guest Posted October 23, 2002 Report Share Posted October 23, 2002 Does this name ring a bell with anyone? I am reading an interesting thing about a drug they are doing clinical trials for nf2 with, it is an epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor (dont freak out, its me cindy, amazing what you can learn by a little reading) its called ZD1839 or Iressa. looks like they are using it in japan for lung cancer. what it does is blocks the pathways of cancer cells so theycant divide, it also might work for benign tumors, menigiomas. here ius an excerpt (Leiberman is the contact and his name is familiar, just wo dering if anyone knew him. i'll be asking dr. evans about if they have any results about this drug yet) ZD1839 blocks one of the important signaling pathways implicated in cancer cell growth in a variety of common tumors. This pathway is triggered by a chemical in the body called epidermal growth factor, which binds to a receptor on the cell surface (the epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR). The EGFR then sends signals into the cell, via an enzyme called tyrosine kinase, to instruct the cell to grow and divide. ZD1839 inhibits this tyrosine kinase enzyme. It gets into the cell and blocks the enzyme, effectively'switching off' the growth signals from the EGFR. There is known to be over-activity of EGFR-TK in many common tumours, making enzyme inhibition a promising new approach to cancer therapy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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