A Protein Killer Could Treat All Cancers, and Possibly All Illnesses
Choking a Tumor MRI scans show that blood flow [red] decreases in liver tumors after ALN-VSP therapy, which stops cancer cells from making proteins that form blood vessels. Courtesy ALNYLAM Since last April, 19 cancer patients whose liver tumors hadn't responded to chemotherapy have taken an experimental drug. Within weeks of the first dose, it appeared to work, by preventing tumors from making proteins they need to survive. The results are preliminary yet encouraging. With a slight redesign, the drug might work for hundreds of diseases, fulfilling the promise that wonder cures like stem cells and gene therapy have failed to deliver. The biotech company Alnylam announced in June that its drug ALN-VSP cut off blood flow to 62 percent of liver-cancer tumors in those 19 patients, by triggering a rarely used defense mechanism in the body to silence cancerous genes. Whereas conventional drugs stop disease-causing proteins, ALN-VSP uses RNA interference (RNAi)...