A kit for examining the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs administered to cancer patients has been developed by Miriam V. Kott-Gutkowski, a doctoral student at the Jerusalem's Hebrew University. For her work, she has been awarded one of this year's Kaye Prizes for Innovations and Inventions at the university. The kit spares cancer patients exposure to chemical treatment that may be ineffective or even harmful and provides a useful tool for identifying those drugs that will be beneficial. Cancerous tumors sometimes develop a resistance to many of the anti-cancer drugs. Often, this resistance is only revealed after months of chemotherapy, with all of its attendant dangers and discomforts. The cause of the resistance by the cancerous cells to toxic drugs directed against them is the presence in their membranes of multi-drug resistant proteins, which are able to "pump out" the anti-cancer drugs. An important contributor to this resistance is a protein called P-glycoprotein.
Major pharmaceutical companies have been working on developing blockers of the P-glycoprotein that can inhibit its pumping activity, thus exposing the cancerous cells to chemotherapeutic drugs. However, it was found in clinical trials that not all of these blockers are effective on all patients. Until now, the only option for cancer patients is to undergo treatment with various combinations of toxic drugs and blockers until the right treatment is found that is effective in penetrating the cancerous cells. The kit that has been developed at the Hebrew University uses a blood sample from the patient, into which is added tumorous membranes which include the P-glycoprotein, and a blocker of that protein. The kit enables immediate detection as to whether a particular blocker is effective or not. In this way, many different blockers can be tested quickly and efficiently until the most effective one is found to match the patient.
Major pharmaceutical companies have been working on developing blockers of the P-glycoprotein that can inhibit its pumping activity, thus exposing the cancerous cells to chemotherapeutic drugs. However, it was found in clinical trials that not all of these blockers are effective on all patients. Until now, the only option for cancer patients is to undergo treatment with various combinations of toxic drugs and blockers until the right treatment is found that is effective in penetrating the cancerous cells. The kit that has been developed at the Hebrew University uses a blood sample from the patient, into which is added tumorous membranes which include the P-glycoprotein, and a blocker of that protein. The kit enables immediate detection as to whether a particular blocker is effective or not. In this way, many different blockers can be tested quickly and efficiently until the most effective one is found to match the patient.