Transplantasi Kornea Babi Sukses, Bocah Ini Selamat dari Kebutaan

Kompas.com - Para dokter di China dikabarkan sukses mencangkokkan mata babi ke seorang bocah 14 tahun yang nyaris mengalami kebutaan. Demikian sejumlah media lokal mengabarkan.

Could mole rats hold the key to a cure for cancer? Scientists hail 'potentially life-changing' breakthrough

Dailymail.co.uk - Scientists have made a 'potentially life-changing' breakthrough in the search for a cure to cancer.

Researchers believe that the cells of a cancer-immune rodent could hold the key to stopping the disease that kills eight million people worldwide each year.

A team, which spent 16 years studying blind mole rats and naked mole rats, have said that harvesting a substance secreted by their cells and making it digestible can destroy cancer in humans and other mammals.

According to the Daily Express, Professor Aaron Avivi, of Haifa University, Israel, will present his team's findings in London.

In 16 years of research, the scientific team never located a cancerous tumour on the rats, which outlive other rodents by at least 20 years.

The team discovered that the fact the rats live mostly underground has led to an evolution of their metabolism.

For their research, scientists tested ordinary rodents against the underground rats with potent carcinogens. While the ordinary mice and rats developed tumours, none were found in their underground cousins.

They concluded that the mole rats are ‘not only resistant to spontaneous cancer but also to experimentally induced cancer’.

Published in BMC Biology, they said: ‘Exploring the molecular mechanisms allowing mole rats to survive in extreme environments and to escape cancer as well as to kill homologous and heterologous cancer cells may hold the key for understanding the molecular nature of host resistance to cancer and identify new anti-cancer strategies for treating humans.’

According to the Express, cancer care specialist Professor Sam Ahmedzai hailed an ‘exciting new phase of research’, adding that it could lead to ‘potentially life-saving treatment’.

Could the cure for AIDS come from fungus? Russian institute thinks folk-remedy from mushrooms may be answer

Chaga mushroom ( Inonotus obliquus ) is a common birch and some other deciduous trees rot fungus.

Has a cure for AIDS finally been found?

One group of Russian scientists thinks so — and they say the answer is down to a centuries-old folk remedy.

According to the Wall Street Journal's Emerging Europe blog, mushrooms found in certain parts of Siberia could hold a promising answer to the deadly AIDS virus.

Scientists at Siberia's Vector research institute said that a certain mushroom — the Chaga — could not only hold strong medicinal purposes, but fight against viruses like HIV, smallpox, and even influenza, the institute said on their website.

The institute, which was established during the Cold War, goes on to say the development is "promising."

The Changa fungi grows on birch trees in the northern stretches of Russia, and while scientists at Vector say that there are no solid tests linking the mushroom with combatting HIV, researchers say the betulinic acid in the fungus is thought to be very toxic to cancers and other viruses.

In Russian lore, many funguses have medicinal purposes, and have been used to treat any number of ailments throughout the centuries.

Pot vending machines take root in Los Angeles

Nbcnews.com - The city that popularized the fast food drive-thru has a new innovation: 24-hour medical marijuana vending machines.

Patients suffering from chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments that marijuana is said to alleviate can get their pot with a dose of convenience at the Herbal Nutrition Center, where a large machine will dole out the drug around the clock.

"Convenient access, lower prices, safety, anonymity," inventor and owner Vincent Mehdizadeh said, extolling the benefits of the machine.

But federal drug agents say the invention may need unplugging.

"Somebody owns (it), it's on a property and somebody fills it," said DEA Special Agent Jose Martinez. "Once we find out where it's at, we'll look into it and see if they're violating laws."

At least three dispensaries in the city, including two belonging to Mehdizadeh, have installed vending machines to distribute the drug to people who carry cards authorizing marijuana use.

Mehdizadeh said he spent seven months to develop and patent the black, armored box, which he calls the "PVM," or prescription vending machine.

Convenience and privacy
A sliding fence protects the tinted windows of his dispensary, barely distinguishing it from a busy thoroughfare of strip malls, automobile dealers and furniture shops. A box resembling a large refrigerator stands inside the nearly empty shop, near a few shelves stocked with vitamins and herbs.

A guard in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Security" on the front stands at the door. A poster of Bob Marley decorates a back room.

The computerized machine requires fingerprint identification and a prepaid card with a magnetic stripe. Once the card and fingerprint are verified, a bright green envelope with the pot drops down a slot.

Mehdizadeh says any user approved for medical marijuana and registered in a computer database at his dispensaries can pre-purchase the drug and then use the machine to pick up.

The process provides convenience and privacy for users who may otherwise feel uncomfortable about buying marijuana, Mehdizadeh said.

At the Timothy Leary Medical Dispensary in the San Fernando Valley, the vending machine is accessible only during business hours. An employee there said the machine was introduced about five months ago, and provides speedy service.

"It helps a lot of patients who are in a lot of pain and don't want to wait around to get help," Robert Schwartz said. "It's been working out great."

Mehdizadeh said he sought the advice of doctors, and decided to limit the amount of marijuana per user to an ounce per week. Each purchase from the machine yields 1/8th or 2/8th of an ounce. By eliminating a vendor behind the counter, he said, the machine offers users lower drug prices. The 1/8th ounce packet would cost about $40 — $20 lower than the average price at other dispensaries.

'It's to medicate'
A spokesman for a marijuana advocacy group said the machine also benefits dispensary owners.

"It limits the number of workers in the store in the event of a raid, and it'll make it harder for theft," said Nathan Sands, of The Compassionate Coalition.

Marijuana use is illegal under federal law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.

The Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal agencies have been actively shutting down major medical marijuana dispensaries throughout the state over the last two years and charging their operators with felony distribution charges.

Mehdizadeh said the Herbal Nutrition Center was the target of a federal raid in December. He said no arrests were made and no charges have been filed against him.

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the machine might benefit those who already know how much and what strain of marijuana they're looking for. But he said others will want to see and smell the drug before they buy it.

A man who said he has been authorized to use medical marijuana as part of his anger management therapy said the vending machine's security measures would at least protect against illicit use of the drug.

"You have kids that want to get high and that's not what marijuana is for," Robert Miko said. "It's to medicate."

Study: Bee Venom Kills HIV

Usnews.com - Bees could hold the key to preventing HIV transmission. Researchers have discovered that bee venom kills the virus while leaving body cells unharmed, which could lead to an anti-HIV vaginal gel and other treatments.

Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that melittin, a toxin found in bee venom, physically destroys the HIV virus, a breakthrough that could potentially lead to drugs that are immune to HIV resistance. The study was published Thursday in the journal Antiviral Therapy.

"Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this as a preventative measure to stop the initial infection," Joshua Hood, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.

The researchers attached melittin to nanoparticles that are physically smaller than HIV, which is smaller than body cells. The toxin rips holes in the virus' outer layer, destroying it, but the particles aren't large enough to damage body cells.

"Based on this finding, we propose that melittin-loaded nanoparticles are well-suited for use as topical vaginal HIV virucidal agents," they write.

Theoretically, the particles could also be injected into an HIV-positive person to eliminate the virus in the bloodstream.

Because the toxin attacks the virus' outer layer, the virus is likely unable to develop a resistance to the substance, which could make it more effective than other HIV drugs.

"Theoretically, melittin nanoparticles are not susceptible to HIV mutational resistance seen with standard HIV therapies," they write. "By disintegrating the [virus'] lipid envelope [it's] less likely to develop resistance to the melittin nanoparticles."

The group plans to soon test the gel in clinical trials.

Drug moves toward FDA approval for HIV prevention

Latimes.com - A pill that has long been used to treat HIV has moved a step closer to becoming the first drug approved in the U.S. to prevent healthy people from becoming infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Gilead Sciences' Truvada appears to be safe and effective for HIV prevention. It concluded that taking the pill daily could spare users "infection with a serious and life-threatening illness that requires lifelong treatment."

On Thursday, a panel of FDA advisors will vote on whether Truvada should be approved as a preventive treatment for people who are at high risk of contracting the human immunodeficiency virus through sexual intercourse. The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its panels, but usually does.

An estimated 1.2 million Americans have HIV, which attacks the immune system and, unless treated with antiviral drugs, develops into AIDS, a fatal condition in which the body cannot fight off infections. If Truvada is approved, it would be a major breakthrough in the 30-year campaign against the AIDS epidemic. No other drugs have been proven to prevent HIV and a vaccine is believed to be decades away.

Gilead Sciences Inc., based in Foster City, Calif., has marketed Truvada since 2004 as a treatment for people who are infected with the virus. The medication is a combination of two older HIV drugs, Emtriva and Viread. Doctors usually prescribe the medications as part of a drug cocktail that makes it harder for the virus to reproduce. Patients with low viral levels have reduced symptoms and are far less likely to develop AIDS.

Researchers first reported in 2010 that Truvada could prevent people from contracting HIV. A three-year study found that daily doses cut the risk of infection in healthy gay and bisexual men by 44%, when accompanied by condoms and counseling. Another study found that Truvada reduced infection by 75% in heterosexual couples in which one partner was infected with HIV and the other was not.

Because Truvada is on the market to manage HIV, some doctors already prescribe it as a preventive measure. But FDA approval would allow Gilead Sciences to formally market its drug for that use.

Some patient advocacy groups say the drug is an important new option to prevent HIV, alongside condoms, counseling and other measures. Last month, AIDS United and more than a dozen other advocacy groups urged the FDA to approve Truvada.

But support is not unanimous.

Although the FDA is legally barred from considering cost when reviewing drugs, healthcare providers have raised concerns about Truvada's price tag: $900 a month, or nearly $11,000 per year. Medicare and Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance plans, generally cover drugs approved by the FDA, and analysts expect most large health insurers to follow suit.

In addition, some researchers object that Truvada is not as good a preventive option as condoms, and they say the drug has a mixed record in protecting women.

Hippy drug 'cures drunks'

Thesun.co.uk - A TRIPPY drug taken by hippies could help cure alcoholics, scientists believe.

Ibogaine, found in a West African shrub, became popular in the Sixties because it caused vivid hallucinations.

But now researchers have found that the drug also boosts parts of the brain that fight addictions, and hope it can be used to treat drinkers.

Experts at the University of California made the discovery by turning mice into alcoholics, making them give up drinking for two weeks ? then giving some of them ibogaine.

The rodents who took the drug no longer craved booze, while the rest continued to drink alcohol when offered it.

Ibogaine even stopped the mice “falling off the wagon”, according to the report in this month’s Journal of Neuroscience.

“The discovery that ibogaine reduced binge drinking after a period of abstinence was an exciting finding for us,” said Dr Patricia Janak, a researcher at the university’s Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Centre.

“This is the type of behaviour in alcoholics for which very few effective drugs exist.”

The scientists now hope they can control ibogaine’s mind-bending side-effects and make it work on humans.

Alcohol kills 7% of British men aged 15 to 44, and the NHS spends £6billion a year on problems caused by booze.

But Dr Bruce Ritson, vice president of the Medical Council on Alcohol, warned: “It’s obviously a long step from mice to men.”

Newly Discovered Antibody Defeats 91 Percent of HIV Strains

Popsci.com - American researchers are working on three antibodies that may mark a new step on the path toward an HIV vaccine, according to a report published online Thursday in the journal Science.

One of the antibodies suppresses 91 percent of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody ever discovered, according to a report on the findings published in the Wall Street Journal. The antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man whose body produced them naturally. One antibody in particular is substantially different from its precursors, the Science study says.

The antibodies could be tried as a treatment for people already infected with HIV, the WSJ reports. At the very least, they might boost the efficacy of current antiretroviral drugs.

A vaccine for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, would likely work by activating the body's own ability to produce antibodies that would ward off the disease. The latest discovery is more promising than a trial in Thailand last year in which scientists said an HIV vaccine reduced the chances of infection by just 30 percent. That study had also been plagued with controversy because in one analysis, the results were not statistically significant.

The WSJ says the new discovery -- involving scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Columbia University -- is part of a renaissance in HIV vaccine research, which will be in focus later this month in Vienna, home to this year's International AIDS Conference.

It is welcome news for the the 33 million people the United Nations estimated were living with AIDS at the end of 2008.

The WSJ outlines the painstaking method the team used to find the antibody amid the cells of the African-American man, known as Donor 45. First they designed a probe that looks just like a spot on a particular molecule on the cells that HIV infects. Then they used the probe to attract only the antibodies that efficiently attack that spot. They screened 25 million of Donor 45's cells to find just 12 cells that produced the antibodies.

Scientists have already discovered plenty of antibodies that either don't work at all or only work on a couple HIV strains. Last year marked the first time that researchers found "broadly neutralizing antibodies," which knock out many HIV strains. But none of those antibodies neutralized more than about 40 percent of them, the WSJ says. The newest antibody, at 91 percent neutralization, is a marked improvement.

Still, more work needs to be done to ensure the antibodies would activate the immune system to produce natural defenses against AIDS, the study authors say. They suggest three test methods that blend the three new antibodies together -- in raw form to prevent transmission of the virus, such as from mother to child; in a microbicide gel that women or gay men could use before sex to prevent infection; or as a treatment for HIV/AIDS, combined with antiretroviral drugs.

If the scientists can find the right way to stimulate production of the antibodies, they think most people could produce them, the WSJ says.

Stroke Drug Kills Cancer Cells and Leaves Normal Cells Intact

A never-approved drug developed to prevent the death of nerve cells after a stroke can efficiently kill cancer cells while keeping normal cells healthy and intact, an international team led by a Tel Aviv University researcher is reporting in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

Prof. Malka Cohen-Armon of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine found that the stroke drug -- a member of a family of phenanthridine derivatives developed by an American drug company -- worked to kill cancer in mice which had been implanted with human breast cancer cells.

"Not only did the drug kill the cancer, but when we investigated normal cells, we discovered that they'd reacted as though they hadn't come in contact with the drug," says Prof. Cohen-Armon. "This is the result we were hoping for. If human trials go well, we could have an entirely new class of drugs in our hands for the fight against cancer."

Stopping the deadly cycle of cancer cell growth

The immediate results of the study were only one of the promising findings in her research, she notes. The team also discovered a molecular mechanism in the cell cycle that can be arrested only in human cancer cells. This cell cycle arrest, they report, causes the cancer cells to die without affecting normal human cells.

"We've found a molecular triggering mechanism in cancer cells that, when set off, causes the cancer cells to die -- they just stop multiplying and die within 48 to 72 hours. Normal, healthy body cells are only temporarily arrested by the same mechanism -- they overcome this cell cycle arrest within 12 hours and continue to proliferate in the presence of the drug as normal un-treated cells," says Prof. Cohen-Armon. "All the human cancer cells we tested seemed to succumb to this compound."

She adds that, even if this particular drug doesn't reach the market to fight against cancer, an entirely new class of drugs might be built around mechanism the team has revealed.

Different strokes

The stroke drug was initially developed to prevent nerve cell death during inflammation and tissue damage in the brain after stroke. However, in pre-clinical studies, American researchers found that these compounds didn't work as well as they'd hoped. Today they are used only for research purposes in laboratory settings.

"The compound we used," says Prof. Cohen-Armon, "presented no traces of toxicity in mice. With this compound, we were able to show how one of the many molecular mechanisms regulating the cell cycle can be targeted, and the proliferation of cancer cells halted." The team is currently working to identify all the regulatory mechanisms involved in this specific process and hope that, in better understanding the science, they might point the way to a new class of anti-cancer drugs.

Her research team was joined by Asher Kastiel, a Ph.D. student from Prof. Shai Izraeli's team working at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, and the veterinarian Dr. David Castel. All the experiments conform with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

Renewed Hope for an AIDS Vaccine

The long search for an AIDS vaccine has produced countless false starts and repeated failed trials, casting once bright hopes into shadows of disenchantment. The now familiar swings appeared in high relief this past fall, with news of the most recent, phase III trial in Thailand. Initial fanfare for a protective outcome gave way to disappointment after reanalysis showed that the protection could be attributed only to chance. But rather than dashing all hopes for an AIDS vaccine, the trial has heartened some researchers, who see new clues in the battle against the fatal illness.

Costing $105 million and enrolling more than 16,000 subjects, the Thai clinical trial was the largest AIDS vaccine test to date. It began in 2003, and early results released in September showed a slim but statistically sound benefit from the vaccine (a series of inoculations with drugs known as ALVAC-HIV and AIDSVAX B/E). But in October the full report, with various statistical analyses, was released in a Paris meeting to greater skepticism. Specifically, 74 people who had received the placebo became infected with HIV in the trial period, compared with the 51 people who became infected after receiving the vaccine, which makes for a protective effect of 31.2 percent. By including, however, the seven people who turned out to have had HIV at the start of the trial (two in the placebo group and five in the vaccine group), the effectiveness drops to 26.4 percent.

"There are still a huge number of uncertainties surrounding this trial," says Dennis Burton, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. The subjects were in low- and moderate-risk groups, such as heterosexuals in monogamous relationships, rather than higher-risk groups such as intravenous drug users. "The numbers involved are small," he adds, noting that statistically the protective effects could be the result of mere chance.

Still, many researchers are convinced that the trial has provided plenty of data to run with. "This contributes more evidence that an AIDS vaccine may be possible," says Jerome Kim of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and co-author of the Thai trial study (which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in October). "We’ve taken a very small step," Kim says. "It's not a home run, but it opens the door to future work." Vaccine proponents also point to the lessons learned from the failed Merck STEP trial. That vaccine test, halted in 2007, got only as far as phase II, but even so it did not leave researchers back at square one. It suggested, he notes, how some HIV strains could be blocked from infecting cells and offered data that could help in the interpretation of the Thai results. And a new analysis of the stopped STEP trial, published online Monday in Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences, provides a warning that the very vectors (adenoviruses, which are also employed in other vaccine development) used to distribute the inactive HIV strains can actually prime the immune system to be infected by recruiting susceptible T cells to mucous membranes, where they are more likely to be infected during sexual activity.

Finding a vaccine has become an increasingly urgent undertaking. Despite advances in therapies, HIV/AIDS is still incurable. Some 7,000 people worldwide contract HIV every day, and in the U.S. about 66,000 new cases are reported every year. Preventing people from getting the virus would save millions of lives as well as greatly reduce health care costs associated with treatment. "It’s really the only optimal method of control for this dreadful pandemic," Raphael Dolin, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who also wrote an editorial accompanying the October paper, says of a vaccine.

Vaccines work by priming the immune system to recognize the target pathogen and attack it when detected. To fend off HIV, researchers introduced one vaccine (ALVAC-HIV) to induce a T cell response—thereby alerting the immune system—and another (AIDSVAX B/E) later to spur an antibody response. In a previous phase III trial in intravenous drug users, AIDSVAX did not work. ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, had not been tested alone.

Using these two drugs together raised eyebrows in the vaccine community. Burton, along with 21 other researchers, co-authored a 2004 paper in Science criticizing the choice to proceed to phase III with two vaccines that had never demonstrated any effectiveness alone. The trial collaborators, however, based their decision on previous research that a combined approach can boost helper T cell response better than a single vaccine.

Despite his earlier doubts, Burton has been inspired by the trial results. "I feel more optimistic than I have in some time," he says. Researchers are now embarking on a host of new experiments to put the Thai findings to work. Volunteers from the trial will now be examined for immune responses—particularly neutralizing antibodies as well as cellular immunity in T cells—and some will get subsequent booster shots to see if protection can be sustained. In the lab, researchers will try to re-create the Thai results in monkeys to validate a new animal using multiple low doses. Other recent research has shown that the number of antibodies needed to provide protection is lower than previously believed, possibly making a vaccine easier to create.

Indeed, entirely new and promising candidates are now in animal trials, including those by the U.S. military to address subtypes A, C and E (rather than the Thai subtype B). Other organizations—including the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the Karolinska Institute and the Swiss nonprofit EuroVacc—and manufacturers also have other vaccines in the works. "The science is really moving," says Seth Berkley, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and who is also president of IAVI. All those confronting the epidemic hope that the momentum leads to a payoff sooner rather than later.

Blue Food Dye Used in M&M's May Treat Spinal Cord Injuries

A common and safe blue food dye might provide the best treatment available so far for spinal cord injuries, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

Tests in rats showed the dye, called brilliant blue G, a close relative of the common food dye Blue no. 1, crossed into the spinal fluid and helped block inflammation, Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center and colleagues reported.

"We have no effective treatment now for patients who have an acute spinal cord injury," Dr. Steven Goldman, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"Our hope is that this work will lead to a practical, safe agent that can be given to patients shortly after injury, for the purpose of decreasing the secondary damage that we have to otherwise expect."

When nerve cells in the brain or spine are damaged, they often release a spurt of chemicals that causes nearby cells to die. No one is sure why, and stopping this process is key to preventing the damage that continues to build after a stroke or spinal cord injury.

One of the chemicals is ATP. Nedergaard's team looked for something that would interfere with this and found the blue dye, which they called BBG, would do this via the P2X7R receptor or doorway.

"We found that IV administration of the P2X7R inhibitor BBG significantly reduced the severity of spinal cord damage without any evident toxicity," they wrote.

"Remarkably, BBG is a derivative of the widely used food additive FD&C Blue number 1. Currently, more than 1 million pounds of FD&C blue dye No. 1 are consumed yearly in the United States, corresponding to a daily intake of 16 mg per person."

The only known toxicity is in patients with blood infections known as sepsis.

Nedergaard cautioned that tests in humans are likely still years away. Treatment would have to be immediate, she added - because the damage to nerve cells is irreversible.

New Anti-cancer Drug: 200 Times More Active In Killing Tumor Cells

A team of 24 researchers from the U.S., Europe, Taiwan and Japan and led by University of Illinois scientists has engineered a new anti-cancer agent that is about 200 times more active in killing tumor cells than similar drugs used in recent clinical trials.

The study appeared on march 2009 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The new agent belongs to a class of drugs called bisphosphonates. These compounds were originally developed to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases, but were recently found to also have potent anti-cancer and immune boosting properties.

Drug developers have tried for years to design drugs to inhibit cell survival pathways in tumor cells, focusing on a protein called Ras since nearly a third of all human cancers involve a mutation in the Ras gene that causes cell signaling to go awry. These efforts have met with limited success.

Bisphosphonates act on other enzymes, called FPPS and GGPPS, which are upstream of Ras in the cell survival pathway. Inhibiting these enzymes appears to be a more effective strategy for killing cancer cells.

When used in combination with hormone therapy in a recent clinical trial, the bisphosphonate drug zoledronate significantly reduced the recurrence of breast cancer in premenopausal women with estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Similar results were reported previously for hormone-refractory prostate cancer.

But zoledronate quickly binds to bone, reducing its efficacy in other tissues.

"We're trying to develop bisphosphonates that will be very active but won't bind to the bone, because if they bind to the bone they're not going to go to breast, lung or other tissues," said University of Illinois chemistry professor Eric Oldfield, who led the new study.

Oldfield's team also wanted to design a compound that would inhibit multiple enzymes in the tumor cell survival pathway, rather than just one, an approach analogous to the use of multi-kinase inhibitors in cancer therapy.

Andrew Wang, of Academia Sinica, Taipei, and Illinois chemist Rong Cao began by producing crystallographic structures of the target enzymes and drug candidates, allowing the researchers to identify those features that would enhance the drugs' ability to bind to the enzymes. Using this and other chemical data, Illinois chemistry department research scientist Yonghui Zhang engineered new bisphosphonate compounds that bound tightly to multiple enzyme targets, but not to bone.

One of the new compounds, called BPH-715, proved to be especially potent in cell culture and effectively inhibited tumor cell growth and invasiveness.

Tadahiko Kubo, of Hiroshima University, then found that BPH-715 also killed tumor cells in mice. And Socrates Papapoulos, of Leiden University, the Netherlands, showed that the compound had a very low chemical affinity for bone.

In humans, compounds like BPH-715 and zoledronate have an added benefit in fighting cancer: They spur the proliferation of immune cells called gamma delta T-cells, which aid in killing tumor cells.

"The new drugs are about 200 times more effective than the drugs used in recent clinical trials at killing tumor cells and in activating gamma delta T-cells to kill tumor cells," Oldfield said. "They also prevent tumor progression in mice much better than do existing bisphosphonate molecules."