Caffeine against the cancer and

novel inhibitors for solid tumors

María José Álvarez O.Medical student UPBMolecular biologyAugust 21th. 2011

Folding

• The advance of science has to be parallel to information advance. Then, the health personnel can have complete access to information, to IMPROVE their therapy strategies, avoiding the invassion and worse damages to other tissues for the patients.

‘’HOW CAFFEINE FIGHTS CANCER’’August 15th. 2011

• Caffeine ‘works as a pro-apoptotic’: it inhibits ATR and it leads to UV-damaged cells to die.

• Experiments in polymorphic mice demonstrated the effectiveness of the caffeine therapy.

• Normal mitosis happens when the chromatine condenses after a complete replication (left). When the ATR mechanisms failure, the chromatine starts condensing before replication (right). Humans don’t have

photoreactivation process. The damage due to UV-light allows the pyrimidine dimers formation.

Student concept

Currently, the fight against the cancer has been slowly changing from invassive therapies with cytotoxic agents, to prevention styles with simple actions, so much easier for the people, and important for the health system economic stability.

• The mechanism used by caffeine is useful to develop ATR analogs.

• Caffeine presence in sunscreens, suggest that cancer therapies have been evolving from cytotoxic to specific-cell agents.

‘’Novel PARP Inhibitor for Solid Tumors and Lymphomas’’August 17th. 2011

• The PARP inhibitor is able to modulate topoisomerase I-mediated DNA damage on tumor cases.

• Topotecan therapy represents a possible myelosupression for patients, neutropenia and thrombocytopenia specially.

Chemotherapy becomes more effective through a PARP

inhibition

• Myelosupression allows the patient to develop opportunistic infections during the topotecan treatment.

Ochroconis gallopava found on a vitreous biopsy.

Student concept• There is a big importance to know more

about the adverse effects that become with treatments to improve them, otherwise, scientists and doctors would not be doing anything than generating tougher problems that increase the risk of death for the patients.

• This is one of the reasons why the patients do not agree with the therapies and let the cancer evolve to methastasic processes.

• The knowledge of chemical reactions between the agents, is important to avoid toxicity risks on patients.

Medical utilities

• DNA structure can be damaged by a lot of external influences

• when the reparation mechanisms are broken, appears an oncologic process.

• Currently, the cancer therapies are inespecific, killing tumoral cells and also healthy.

• consumption of caffeine is a cheap but effective way of prevention.

• The investigators could develop new, accessible and less invassive alternatives of treatment, starting from molecular modifications and additional deep studies.

• Some agents have higher affinity for plasmatic proteins than other medicaments.

• Future therapies will be more controllated and will allow to calcullate the indicated dosification for each patient.

Bibliography

• MARTÍNEZ, Lina; Biología molecular, Vol 6. ed. UPB, 2011. Pgs 74-84.

• AKST, Jef; How Caffeine Fights Cancer, The scientist magazine. August 15th. 2011. http://the-scientist.com/2011/08/15/how-caffeine-fights-cancer/

• AZVOLINSKY, Anna; Novel PARP Inhibitor for Solid Tumors and Lymphomas. Cancer network. August 17th.2011

http://www.cancernetwork.com/breast-cancer/content/article/10165/1929749

Thank you