BLOG: High expectations for melanoma drug ipilimumab
Monoclonal antibodies light up rat tissue culture
I wrote about the cancer drug ipilimumab last year, which has been hailed as miraculous by some. The drug has been through Phase 3 clinical trials and results will be presented on June 6 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Meanwhile, following announcements of the miracle cure in three men having prostate cancer, ipilimumab has also been show to be modestly effect against lung cancer, according to the company.
Ipilimumab works by targeting an inhibitor of the immune system called CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4) and subsequently boosting the response of the killer T-cells. It belongs to the highly promising monoclonal antibody field of therapeutics.
Quote from a press release sounds like the company is excited:
“We are excited by the potential of immuno-oncology, an entirely new paradigm in the treatment of multiple types of cancer in which a patient’s own immune system is activated to fight cancer cells,” said Elliott Sigal, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president, chief scientific officer and president, Research and Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb.
“We are leading the way with ipilimumab, the most advanced investigational compound in our immuno-oncology portfolio, in testing this new paradigm and we look forward to presenting results from the ipilimumab clinical development program at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.”
But while the promise of the basic science is cool, it’ll be difficult to draw conclusions about the real-world application of the drug until the results are formally presented and peer reviewed.
Scientists Weigh Use of Bacteria for Cleaner Fossil Fuel Production
May 18 — Much of the world’s oil reserves lies in giant tar sand stretches in places like Alberta and Venezuela. While the oil industry uses an energy-intensive and fairly dirty process to make steam to cook the oil out of the tar sands, underground bacteria simply eat the crude oil and break it down into methane, or natural gas.
In nature, that process takes millions of years. A small group of cross-disciplinary microbiologists with their feet both in the oil industry and academic geochemistry wants to speed up the work. They are trying to get these bugs to break down carbon much faster to produce a steady supply of commercial natural gas, and to enhance the recovery of crude.
Interest in using microbes that grow naturally in oil fields, coal beds and shale deposits is growing, according to a group of industry insiders at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) 2010 convention last week in Chicago.
“We’ve garnered the attention of large oil and gas producers around the world,” said Mark Finkelstein, vice-president of science at Colorado-based Luca Technologies. “The recent emphasis on climate change and natural gas bodes well for our technology.”