{"id":20966,"date":"2017-07-06T17:20:06","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T21:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=20966"},"modified":"2022-03-16T12:37:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T16:37:07","slug":"university-toronto-cancer-treatment-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/university-toronto-cancer-treatment-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Toronto Researcher Is Working on a Promising Cancer Treatment Alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is potentially a new form of cancer treatment with minimal side effects. <\/span>Dr. Patrick Gunning<\/span><\/a>, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto, and his team of researchers have created a molecule that could target specific cells. This is significant because it is the opposite of chemotherapy, which is often used on cancer patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChemotherapy is just broadly cell killing toxicity,\u201d Gunning said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost<\/span> every chemotherapy patient experiences nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fatigue. Many also suffer long-term, permanent side effects, including dental and oral health problems, vision problems, learning and memory problems, and organ damage to the heart, lung, liver, or reproductive system. This is because chemotherapy doesn\u2019t just attack cancer cells, it also attacks healthy cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gunning, who has received research funding from <\/span>The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada and other cancer charities, focused his research on STAT3 and STAT5 proteins. These proteins have been shown to drive cancer development in many types of blood cancer, as well as brain and breast cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I went after STAT3 and STAT5 because they were hard targets,\u201d explained Gunning. \u201cThey\u2019re not a traditional drug discovery target. So I think from an academic perspective I kind of liked that because it was a challenge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The way this targeted therapy works is that the new molecules bind to the proteins inside the cancer cells and \u201cswitch off\u201d the tumor-growing process. <\/span>\u201cOur goal is that these molecules will allow people to have a less aggressive cancer therapy regimes, and will prevent tumours from coming back,\u201d Gunning told <\/span>Mediaplanet<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s one of our main objectives\u2014to prevent these aggressive cancers from coming back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n