Lung cancer is the deadliest type of cancer in the United States, causing more than 100,000 deaths annually, which is more casualties than other kinds of cancers combined. Current lung-cancer treatments include chemotherapy, surgery, targeted therapy, radiation therapy or a combination of these approaches.
Treatment can be up to 90% effective if the cancer is still small and in early stages, but success rates drop as the tumor becomes larger and more advanced. As the risk of cancer in people under age 50 has increased dramatically, scientists across the country have dedicated their time and energy to discovering even more efficient cancer therapies.
Researchers from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science have now developed a therapeutic strategy that combines pharmaceutical drugs and bacterial therapies to increase treatment effectiveness. The scientists revealed that they have developed a preclinical evaluation pipeline that allowed them to combine bacterial therapies with other types of treatments to boost treatment efficacy without adding any toxicity.
At the end of the study, the researchers were able to quickly characterize bacterial therapies and integrate them with lung cancer-targeted therapies. Associate research scientist and study author, Dhruba Deb, stated that the research team envisioned a “fast and selective” expansion of its pipeline to increase the efficacy and safety of lung-cancer treatments.
The research team leveraged RNA sequencing to study how cancer cells responded to bacteria at the molecular and cellular levels. The team then built a hypothesis on the molecular pathways that allowed cancer cells to resist bacteria therapy and blocked these pathways to determine the validity of their hypothesis. The scientists discovered that blocking the molecular pathways with cancer drugs combined with bacterial toxins was quite effective at destroying lung cancer cells.
Given that lung cancer is the most common and deadliest type of cancer, affecting hundreds of thousands of lives every year, finding more effective forms of treatment is crucial. New treatments that can target and kill cancer cells safely and more effectively could significantly increase lung-cancer survivability rates and reduce mortality rates.
LUNGevity Foundation’s executive director of research Upal Basu Roy said that the new study peeled the cover on an avenue that had barely been explored before, using bacterial toxins to target cancer cells. He noted that the study showed the need for more research into the combined use of bacterial toxins and pharmaceutical drugs and opened up the possibility of novel treatment options for lung cancer.
The study’s findings were published in the “Scientific Reports” journal.
There’s plenty of ongoing research aimed at finding better treatments for various cancers, and as enterprises such as QSAM Biosciences Inc. (OTCQB: QSAM) make headway in their R&D programs, patients can look forward to a future where many treatment options exist, hopefully without the numerous side effects current pharmaceuticals are known to have.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to QSAM Biosciences Inc. (OTCQB: QSAM) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/QSAM
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