New Metabolic Research leads to New Cancer Treatments

The mTOR pathway is a vital metabolic pathway for the creation of new cells, helping controlling someone's metabolism. It regulates cell growth based on the nutrients available to the cell, halting cells from being created if not enough nutrients are present. mTOR also produces s-adenosylmethionine (SAM) a metabolite used in protein synthesis that is also important for cell growth.

Cancer cells need to use the mTOR pathway to move throughout the body. When cancer is present the mTOR pathway is very active to because it is vital for the synthesis of new tumor cells. Because mTOR is essential for all cells in the body, inhibiting it can lead to some bad side effects., Knowing that when in tumor cell mTOR produces much more SAM than usual, researchers at Northwestern University have done studies on mice, injecting them with tumor cells and giving them SAM inhibitors and testing the speed at which the cancer spread. Their results were overwhelmingly positive and as of April 9th Biotech company Celuity announced an agreement with Pfizer to develop and commercialize the first mTOR inhibitors. I think that once the mTOR inhibitors have successful results in being adjuvant therapy, the safer route of SAM inhibitors will start to be used and better cancer treatments will follow.

 Links:

https://pipelinereview.com/index.php/2021040977858/Small-Molecules/Celcuity-Announces-Worldwide-Licensing-Agreement-with-Pfizer-to-Develop-and-Commercialize-Gedatolisib-a-First-in-Class-PI3K/mTOR-Inhibitor-for-Breast-Cancer.html

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-inhibiting-production-key-material-biosynthesis.html

Penicillin Allergies are Hereditary

 

Penicillin is a common antibiotic used to treat many common bacterial infections. The problem is that so many people are allergic to it, that it's not as commonly prescribed anymore. Usually, doctors more often prescribe amoxicillin, which can treat a wider broad of infections. Onwards, penicillin has been shown to a genetic variation link on HLA-B*55:01. This a specific location on chromosome 6. This is a variant of HLA-B which has other variants shown to cause adverse reactions to abacavir which is prescribed for HIV/AIDS treatment. Also, the medication, allopurinol, used to treat gout. Scientists find that this discovery is reasonable since it seems that the HLA-B predisposes for a higher risk in drug reactions.

 The HLA-B genetic variation allows for the body cells to be able to distinguish between harmful bacteria and viruses. While the HLA gene, known as human leukocyte antigen, has been studied to show that people with genetic variations of the HLA have negative reactions to medications/drugs.

Scientists were able to discover this genetic variation by using electronic health records with the genetic information available, then further narrowing it down to people with self-reported penicillin allergies. Since only using self-reported penicillin allergies, some of the HLA-B gene variants were not found in every patient studied. If replicated patients with confirmed penicillin allergies will be better suited for the study. It is estimated that 90% of people misreport penicillin allergies. This is most likely not being properly educated on what is considered an allergen vs the side effects of drugs.

Overall, this information would be very useful to people. This is because some people also have such adverse reactions to medications that it can lead to long-term negative effects or even death. If being able to have this information widely available to people about predispositions to certain drugs and the adverse effects it may cause, then people can know what to avoid them.

I found this article very interesting. I work in a pharmacy and see how medication allergies are handled. Most people misreport allergies, as the side effects that can come from taking the medication. My pharmacist has to council patients daily, on certain medications and then most of the time comes to find out they reported having an upset stomach as their allergy symptom or even a rash, which can be a side effect or allergen. Now, of course, to prove if you have allergies to certain drugs it is not the easiest to get allergy tested by a specialist. But still, if studied further, it would be more important to study patients with confirmed allergies to get more accurate results, if the HLA-B*B55:01 really does affect allergy and effectiveness towards penicillin allergies.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/penicillin-allergies-immune-system-genetics

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32888428/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25224099/

 

 

 

Gene Signatures of Yeast May Help Predict Reactions to Medications

This short article discusses research conducted by the University of British Columbia that explored effects of different drugs on many different strains of yeast. It is not a little known fact that any given drug could affect different people in different ways. Anything from blood pressure medication to an anti-depressant to an illicit drug can be experienced differently and cause a plethora of different side effects. In fact, it's not unusual for someone who is looking for relief from some kind of ailment to have to try several different drugs before they find one that allows them to get the desired effects they need without too many negative side effects. This is especially true of psychiatric drugs- for example, an anti-depressant that helps one person feel better, focus, and have more energy may make another person foggy, more miserable, and unable to get out of bed. This experiment involved taking 6000 different strains of yeast and testing their reactions to 5000 different drugs. The results showed that there were around 50 different ways that each strain might react to a different drug. Each of these reactions represents a different gene signature. Because 50 is a relatively small number compared to 6000 different yeast strains, associate professor Guri Giaever believes that this research not only indicates that we will one day be able to use someone's gene signature to predict how they will react to different drugs, eliminating the need to bounce between medicines before finding one that works for them, but also may provide the first steps to mapping possible reactions. The information gathered in this experiment may also prove useful to future cancer research.

(Secondary article: http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v1/n1/full/nrd705.html )

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Epidemic

      

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

                 A.D.H.D. medications were in short supply from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012 throughout the United States. This shortage was due to the supply being outpaced by the request for the medication. Prior to the 1990’s, less than 5% of school-aged children were thought to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 11% of adolescences from the ages of 4 to 17 had received the news that they had A.D.H.D.; this 11% does not include the adult population. This shows that the number of children diagnosed with A.D.H.D has skyrocketed over the past 20 years.

A.D.H.D. Medications

                For many years people felt that A.D.H.D. was a made up disorder. Yet, facts have shown that A.D.H.D. is a genetic based disease. The way that scientist determine if specific behaviors and traits are genetically based are by comparing twins. Identical twins share almost 100% of the same genes, while fraternal twins share about half of their genes. This shows that if a disorder is genetically based, the identical twins have a higher chance of sharing it than the fraternal twins. Researchers at Michigan State University, in 2010, studied 22 different twins and established that the traits of hyperactivity and inattentiveness are greatly inheritable. Also, studies that use brain-imaging, display dissimilarities between people who were diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and people who were not. These images show that people with A.D.H.D. have less receptors for chemical messenger dopamine in specific regions. This would cause the brain to not function to its highest abilities.

Brain Imaging of Non-ADHD and ADHD patients.

 

            Since so many children and adults are diagnosed with A.D.H.D. the increase in medications has raised. New medications are being produced and more medications are being distributed. The genetic disorder A.D.H.D. affects the lives of many people, especially children. Now knowing about this disease had opened up the door to improvement for it. Children are now receiving the assistance that they need to become focused and do well in school. There are therapists for them to talk to, there is access to tutors, and time modifications for standardized testing. Also, there is a drug treatment for this disease. People are beginning to realize that this is not a disease that is just made up and people do suffer from this. It really makes a difference to do the studies and find out where this disease comes from and how you can resolve the problem.

             To me many children do have A.D.H.D. and they need for it to be taken care of. It distracts them from the things that they need to do and accomplish in life. It can be the difference if they do good in school and obtain and retain an education. Knowing the it is a genetic disease does help figure out how they can fix the problem and make medication to fix the problem. I do believe that people do abuse the used of A.D.H.D. medications and that does need to be looked into. Though many people are diagnosed with A.D.H.D. I do not feel that they all have the disease.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/magazine/the-not-so-hidden-cause-behind-the-adhd-epidemic.html?_r=0

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-genetics-of-adhd/0003789