Fragmento del articulo : ... Algunas compañías ya se han centrado en el descubrimiento de fármacos de
origen marino, el más conocido de los cuales es la compañía con sede en España
PharmaMar en cuyo caso se centra en medicamentos contra el cáncer. "We’re just scratching the surface" of understanding the chemistry—and healing potential—in the ocean.
Some of the world’s most used medicines were directly inspired by compounds
found in nature. Morphine, for example, was first extracted from opium in a pure
form in the early 1800s, and Taxol, one of the most-used cancer drugs, is based
on compounds originally isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. Aspirin
is one of the oldest nature-inspired drugs, modifying from compounds discovered
in willow tree bark. Natural products are still crucial to drug discovery today. According to a
2012 study, up to 50% of drugs approved in the last 30 years were directly
or indirectly sourced from nature. But for drug companies, the 1990s was the
height of their interest in "bioprospecting," or looking in nature for potential
new drug compounds.
"Most companies have greatly reduced their natural product departments, and
it’s mainly because of the cost and time that it takes to do this properly,"
says Eduardo Esquenazi, founder of a San Diego-based startup that aims to fill
this gap. "What we try to do is remove both those components, or at least reduce
them greatly."
The company, called
Sirenas, is focused on hunting for new drugs in the ocean, where organisms
have evolved nuanced, unique chemistries for competing, communicating, and
defending themselves over hundreds of millions of years of evolution. "The
chemistry in the ocean—we’re just scratching the surface of understanding it,"
says Esquenazi.
About four times a year, Sirenas divers go out to remote locations and
collect sponges, cyanobacteria, and algaes and bring them back to the lab in San
Diego. They catalogue each of their compounds and screen them against different
diseases, such as cancers or—now with a new grant from the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation—neglected diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and
cryptosporidium. Using heavy data-crunching software, Sirenas mines the results
and selects the best drug candidates. The last and perhaps hardest step is to
then synthesize that natural molecule in the lab, a job led by Sirenas cofounder
and 2013 MacArthur
Foundation Fellow Phil Baran. Sirenas partners with drug companies to triage its research and focus on the
most promising compounds. The company, only founded four years ago, hasn’t
licensed any of its work yet, but it has had early successes. On a trip to a
salt pond in Chile’s remote Atacama desert, it found a novel antimalarial
molecule that Esquenazi says "works in a completely new, very potent way."
Still, it is a complicated molecule that is very costly to produce, so it’s
future remains to be seen.
Only a few other companies have focused on marine-based drug discovery, the
best known of which is Spain-based company PharmaMar, which harvests the ocean
for cancer drugs. And Seattle Genetics has an approved biologic anticancer drug
on the market made partly from a synthetic version of a marine-derived compound.
Esquenazi says Sirenas is focused on harnessing the explosion of computational
resources, artificial intelligence, and data mining that could allow it to make
discoveries much faster than in the past.
The World Health Organization says that more than 1 billion people today
suffer from one or more neglected diseases. With the $775,000 Gates Foundation
grant, Sirenas will focus on finding new molecules that could offer treatments.
As it is today, pharmaceutical companies tend not to pursue these drugs. With
these diseases affecting the poorest nations, it’s difficult to make a profit,
so nonprofits and governments step in.
Major clinical research advances in Gynecologic Cancer in 2015 .
Dong Hoon Suh, Miseon Kim, Hak Jae Kim, Kyung-Hun Lee, and Jae-Weon Kim
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
In 2015, fourteen topics were selected as major research advances in gynecologic oncology. For ovarian cancer, high-level evidence for annual screening with multimodal strategy which could reduce ovarian cancer deaths was reported. The best preventive strategies with current status of evidence level were also summarized. Final report of chemotherapy or upfront surgery (CHORUS) trial of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced stage ovarian cancer and individualized therapy based on gene characteristics followed. There was no sign of abating in great interest in immunotherapy as well as targeted therapies in various gynecologic cancers. The fifth ovarian cancer consensus conference which was held in November 7–9 in Tokyo was briefly introduced. For cervical cancer, update of human papillomavirus vaccines regarding two-dose regimen, 9-valent vaccine, and therapeutic vaccine was reviewed. For corpus cancer, the safety concern of power morcellation in presumed fibroids was explored again with regard to age and prevalence of corpus malignancy. Hormone therapy and endometrial cancer risk, trabectedin as an option for leiomyosarcoma, endometrial cancer and Lynch syndrome, and the radiation therapy guidelines were also discussed. In addition, adjuvant therapy in vulvar cancer and the updated of targeted therapy in gynecologic cancer were addressed. For breast cancer, palbociclib in hormone-receptor-positive advanced disease, oncotype DX Recurrence Score in low-risk patients, regional nodal irradiation to internal mammary, supraclavicular, and axillary lymph nodes, and cavity shave margins were summarized as the last topics covered in this review
Only a few other companies have focused on marine-based drug discovery, the
best known of which is Spain-based company PharmaMar, which harvests the ocean
for cancer drugs. And Seattle Genetics has an approved biologic anticancer drug
on the market made partly from a synthetic version of a marine-derived compound.
Esquenazi says Sirenas is focused on harnessing the explosion of computational
resources, artificial intelligence, and data mining that could allow it to make
discoveries much faster than in the past.