Below is an article I'm linking for some friends of mine that wouldn't otherwise have access to the information. It's a brief article run in the Fort Worth Start Telegram back in 2007, when the cancer treatment that could have potentially saved my aunt's life was beginning to gain notoriety. The project has since been placed back in "research" phase pending government grants (hopefully!), because private funding was harder to get than everyone thought.
It's not funny, and for that I apologize; but it's definitely a worthy cause, and worth taking a break for. And I promise, I'll try to post some funny stories this weekend to make up for it! :) The program is interesting and has showed great promise. Donations are still being accepted, and when the website is brought back up (when the $$'s get us closer to trials), I'll make sure I post again. Anyone interested in donating can send it to:
Sanjay Awasthi Cancer Research Fund
UNT Health Science Center Foundation
3500 Camp Bowie Boulevard, EAD 802
Fort Worth, Texas 76107-2699
UTA research is a potential lifesaver for cancer patients
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) - Thursday, August 2, 2007
Author/Byline: O.K. CARTER, Star-Telegram Staff WriterEdition: TarrantSection: MetroPage: B2
Speak with University of Texas at Arlington cancer researcher and biochemistry professor Sharad Singhal and it's easy to come away with a conviction that you've just met one of the smartest guys on the planet.
Then turn around in the same lab and darned if there isn't another one, Sanjay Awasthi, full-time M.D./oncologist and somehow part-time biochemistry professor. Call it an intellectual tie.
Fortunately, all that brain power collaborates on research , a beneficial partnership for mankind. Their laboratory experiments with mice have stopped several types of cancer cold and in a hurry. Without harming the mice. They'll soon be ready to move on to higher-level exercises, including trials with people.
Their results have not gone without notice. The Arlington-based Cancer Research Foundation of North Texas has been providing annual five-figure grants for some time, so it would be interesting if the work of Singhal and Awasthi — they also collaborate with five other UT-Arlington and UT Medical Branch-Galveston scientists — turns out to be a significant breakthrough. If so, credit will have to be given to the ongoing support of the relatively small Cancer Research Foundation.
It's a simplification, but the Awasthi/Singhal research boils down to this: A protein called RLIP76 is a multidrug transporter that shows up in cancerous cells — a sort of molecular cell train. Its presence, Singhal says, kicks off " a toxic network of biochemical signals that promotes inflammation and cancer cell growth." Inhibit or deplete RLIP76, and the network of biochemical signals that result in cancer stops. The cancer dies. The patient lives.
"The cancer cells can't survive without RLIP76," Awasthi says. "Normal cells don't need RLIP76. I think it's potentially a breakthrough of major significance."
It hasn't come easy. Physician/professor Awasthi first became interested in a do-no-harm body chemistry approach to treating cancer as an undergraduate more than two decades ago.
Likewise it has been a long haul for Singhal, who began research with this particular murderous protein 19 years ago. His laboratory computer is filled with photographs of mice with implants of lung and colon cancers .
There are unlucky mice who receive no treatment, mice with conventional chemotherapy treatments, mice that receive the RLIP76 inhibitor and mice that receive the inhibitor plus conventional chemotherapy treatments.
Singhal radiates the enthusiasm of discovery as he clicks through computer photo files of mice receiving the most successful treatment strategy — a combination RLIP76 inhibitor and chemotherapy.
"Look!" he commands. Sure enough, the tumors disappear in days to a few weeks — in medical parlance a complete regression. For colon, lung or melanoma cancers it's a near miraculous outcome, though there are other types — breast cancer for example — that don't respond. But research is still being refined.
Mice, obviously, are not people. What's needed is for more animal research to be conducted, followed by human trials. And quickly.
Singhal and Awasthi are not unknowns. Their findings have been noted extensively in medical publications of LeadDiscovery, the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, the National Institutes of Health, the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Association for Cancer Research and Cancer Research Jo urnal. Other researchers now emulate their strategies. Their work and results are not secrets, but there's still a significant snag.
It's the usual one. Money. Their research has to be funded at a level that is far beyond the financial capability of the Cancer Research Foundation of North Texas.
Somebody needs to find them the needed buckets of research cash. And soon. It's a life-and-death deal. And maybe a future Nobel Prize deal.
O.K. Carter appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. 817-548-5428 okc@star-telegram.com
Caption: SHARAD SINGHAL
Index Terms: arl ; okcarter ; MAIN STREETRecord Number: 180093Copyright (c) 2007 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
*Always in memory of a wonderful aunt, mother, wife, and friend, Pamela Deese-11/14/2008
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