Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 15, Issue 7, 2009

While cancer remains a major killer in the developed world, a broad spectrum of novel and exciting approaches are being developed and tested. This issue of Current Pharmaceutical Design “Anti-cancer drugs” will once again highlight several of these developments and present an up-to date overview. Among the molecules used or targeted in the research described are both novel compounds with promising activity such as th Read More

Prodigiosins are a family of bright red colored bacterial pigment and derive their name from the miraculous (prodigious) events associated with their occurrence. They indeed seem to be living upto their name as a host of activities such as anti-microbial, anti-malarial, anti-cancer and immunosuppressive have been associated with them. Out of these, immunosuppressive and anti-cancer activity has received more imp Read More

Chemokines and their receptors play critical roles in leukocyte trafficking during inflammatory processes. Although the role of chemokine receptors (CKRs) in cancer biology is a relatively new field of study, a growing body of data suggest that a number of CKRs, including CXCR4, CCR4, CCR7, and CCR10, may play diverse of roles in cancer growth, cancer metastasis, cancer angiogenesis, or the composition of the cancer microenvi Read More

Receptor Tyrosine Kinases class I (RTK class I, EGF receptor family) constitute a family of transmembrane proteins involved in various aspects of cell growth and survival and have been implicated in the initiation and progression of several types of human malignancies. Activation of EGFR may be because of overexpression, mutations resulting in constitutive activation, or autocrine expression of ligand. In contrast, activation of Read More

The development of metal complexes with anticancer activity has had an enormous impact on cancer chemotherapy. The discovery of cisplatin in the 1960's represented a landmark achievement and ushered in a new era in cancer treatment. Despite the fact that cisplatin has achieved significant clinical benefit for several types of solid tumors, its effectiveness has been hampered by toxic side effects and tumor resistan Read More

Tumors develop resistance to cytotoxic apoptotic stimuli induced by various chemotherapeutic drugs and immunotherapies. Therefore, there is a need to overcome chemo- and immuno-resistance of tumors through the development of small molecules, as sensitizing agents, aimed at targeting gene products that regulate the apoptotic pathways and allow therapeutics to be effective. The constitutively activated NF-κB ( Read More

In recent years, complexes formed from a cytokine and antibodies against that respective cytokine (cytokine/ Ab complex) have been shown to induce remarkable powerful changes in the immune system. Strong interest exists especially for complexes formed with Interleukin (IL)-2 and anti-IL-2-antibody (IL-2/Ab complex). IL-2/Ab complex activates maturation and proliferation in CD8+ T cells and natural killer (NK) cells to a Read More