Grand Canyon Times

Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a "Goldilocks drug" that appears to stop cancer cell growth in what's known as triple-negative breast cancer.

According to a release from the university, researchers say the drug, which has not been tested on humans, has shown an ability to eliminate tumors in mice with minimal effect on healthy cells, making it potentially nontoxic for patients. The research team has conducted research on this for decades, and its findings have now been published in the journal Cancer Gene Therapy. 

"We are so excited about this because it's very tumor specific," Joyce Schroeder, who wrote the report along with Benjamin Atwell, said in the release. 

Schroder is head of the university's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. The therapy is based on the way a gene known as epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR, leads to cancer. EGFR is known in certain circumstances to transform a cell into a tumor cell.

"EGFR has been known to be an oncogene for six decades, and there's a lot of drugs out there trying to target it, but they all had limitations that didn't make them workable as drugs for breast cancer," Schroeder said.

Approval to test the drug in phase one clinical trials in humans from the Food and Drug Administration is pending, the release stated.

"It was like the Goldilocks effect," Schroeder said. "When we tested the drug in animal models, we got this fabulous result where it actually didn't just stop the tumors from going, it caused them to regress and go away. And we're seeing no toxic side effects."

Schroeder said previously it was difficult to know where to direct gene therapy for cancer, and the new treatment seems to provide one in the case of triple-negative breast cancer.

"Targeting triple-negative breast cancer has been difficult because it doesn't have one of these obvious things to target," she said. "People have known for a long time that triple-negative breast cancer cells express EGFR, but when the known EGFR drugs were thrown at it, it didn't respond."

The next phase of development is to test the drug in human trials, then to examine the drug's ability to suppress metastasis, which occurs when cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, Schroeder added.