biotech
Diabetes Drug Metformin Ma Slow Down Cancer
Filed in archive Drugs, Vaccines and Therapeutics , Gene Therapy , Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics by ruth on August 15, 2007
Diabetes Drug Metformin Ma Slow Down Cancer
Researchers have discovered that metformin, a commonly prescribed diabetes drug, slows down the growth of cancer cells lacking p53, a key regulatory gene that regulates Cell division and several metabolic pathways in cells.
The researchers found that metformin instructs cells to switch metabolic pathways. Instead of using the most energy efficient pathway - called oxidative phosphorylation - the cells are forced to use stress-related ones, which are typically used when the cell is short on oxygen, glucose or other nutrient sources. But in the absence of p53, the cells can't make the switch. "Without p53, if we force cells to live on alternative substrates, they can't do it," explains Thompson.

As p53 is lacking in more than 50% of all human cancers, metformin seems to be a promising drug for use in cancer therapy, also considering that the drug is already approved as a therapeutic for human use. The results of the study has been published in Cancer Research.

Source: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine


Permalink: Diabetes Drug Metformin Ma Slow Down Cancer
Tags: diabetes  metformin  cancer  gene+therapy  genomics  biotech  diabetes+drug  slow+down 
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/86411
img Addthis img Ask img Blinklist img del.icio.us img Digg img Fark img Facebook img Google img Lycos img Ma.gnolia Add this page to Mister Wong Mr Wong img Netscape img Netvousz img Newsvine img Reddit img StumbleUpon img Slashdot img Tailrank img Technorati img Wink img Yahoo

Vote for Diabetes Drug Metformin Ma Slow Down Cancer:

  • Currently 9.43/10
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
Rating: 9.43 out of 7 vote(s) cast.
Subscribe
Share It
Popular posts from our other blogs:
RSSrss
See all blog subscribe options
Google google
What is RSS?
Yahoo! yahoo
Addthis Subscribe using any feed reader!
Bloglines Bloglines
Newsletter

TwitterFollow us on Twitter!