Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2001

Most patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) respond initially to combination chemotherapy but later relapse. These patients often die from progressive disease or toxicities of further chemotherapy. At relapse, the patients blasts are usually resistant to the drugs to which the patient has been exposed and frequently to other cytotoxic agents as well. Nevertheless, a number of these patients may be salvaged and achieve Read More

Phage display is a powerful technology for selecting and engineering peptides and proteins expressed on the surface of filamentous bacteriophage. The advantages of phage display technology over other research tools and its great potential have been demonstrated by successful application of phage display in diverse fields of biomedical / clinical research. In this review we will describe some recent developments in phage displa Read More

The ability to display IgE antibody fragments, allergens and peptides upon filamentous phage has increasingly been used in allergy research. This technique offers the opportunity to isolate and produce IgE antibody fragments specific for allergens. These antibody fragments can then be used to address fundamental issues regarding the development of IgE antibodies in allergic patients, at both the molecular and structural lev Read More

The pharmaceutical industry has recently focused on intracellular signaling as a means to integrate the multiple facets of complex disease states, such as inflammation, because these pathways respond to numerous extracellular signals and coordinate a collection of cell responses contributing to pathology. One critical aspect of intracellular signaling is regulation of key cell functions by lipid mediators, in particular the generatio Read More

Thymidine phosphorylase (TP) is a key enzyme in the activating pathway of 5DFUR and capecitabine. On the other hand, TP is identical to platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF) which is known to be an angiogenic factor. Recent studies show TP expression is increased in various malignancies compared with the surrounding normal tissues. These reports demonstrate that elevated TP expression indicates a Read More

Immuno-isolation provides a potentially safe and effective method of delivering recombinant therapeutic molecules. Its application as a drug-delivery platform for the treatment of cancer has shown promising developments recently. This review will summarize the principle and current progress of this novel therapy paradigm in oncology. In this approach, a non-autologous cell line is genetically modified to secrete a reco Read More