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Mike Burgess, a student in the dual M.D. and Ph.D graduate program, works in the lab of Charles S

For those suffering from leukemia, good news regarding the possibility of a new treatment option has recently surfaced from the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center.

Scientists at the cancer center recently published research regarding an experimental therapy which could help patients suffering from chronic myeloid leukemia – a slow progressing cancer that makes the body produce too many cancerous myeloid white blood cells.

The research led by Neil Shah and fellow researcher Charles Sawyer – both oncologists at the cancer center – revolves around developments in the study of a current cancer therapy drug called Gleevec. This research may lead to a supplemental drug which could make up for Gleevec’s shortcomings.

Gleevec is a common drug used to treat leukemia patients and it is highly effective initially, but as time progresses, its potency decreases and it becomes more disease resistant, Shah said.

According to a UCLA Health Sciences press release, “about 15 to 20 percent of leukemia patients who take Gleevec become resistant to the drug and suffer a relapse, leaving them with few effective treatment options.”

When Gleevec first came on the market in 2001 it slowed the rate of leukemia progression and the patients had fewer leukemic cells in their blood and bone marrow than others who were using the then-current medication.

The goal of Gleevec is to decrease the number of white blood cells in a patient’s circulation, and then remove the abnormal cells, according to Gleevec’s Web site.

At first patients responded positively to Gleevec, but the long-term revealed the decreased potency of the drug, UCLA researchers said.

An alternative treatment has eluded researchers for quite some time, but now help may come in the form of a new pill capable of battling Gleevec’s resistance.

After receiving a developmental compound from pharmaceutical giant, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the research team discovered the compound had resistant qualities and it is now undergoing evaluation.

The results of the study concerning the new investigational compound were published last Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal “Science”, and now the compound is in Phase 1 trials.

“The Phase 1 trials are designed to find out the efficacy of the pill and the appropriate dose,” said Kathy Baum, a spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

UCLA researchers say that this investigational compound could add another dimension to the treatment of leukemia.

“In the future, we may be combining therapies that can, amongst them, override all the resistance mechanisms that allow cancer to evade individual therapies. In the future, cancer may be treated similarly to HIV, with a cocktail of drugs,” said Shah in the press release.

The recent work done on chronic myeloid leukemia by Shah, Sawyers and others is an accumulation of 20 years of work at UCLA.

Shah said 20 years ago, in the lab of Owen Whittey, researchers demonstrated that the underlying genetic abnormality with chronic myeloid leukemia was a result of an abnormal over productive protein.

Then, 15 years later researchers began studying an inhibitor associated with the abnormal protein in the context of clinical trials, he added.

Today, researchers have found that the abnormal protein has mutated so that the traditional methods of treatment are less effective, Shah said.

“In a nutshell, what we here at UCLA have hypothesized is that to target these mutant forms would be something of clinical value,” Shah added.

There are two dozen different mutations in the abnormal protein which have been identified in patients that are resistant to Gleevec.

The results of the UCLA study show that the investigative compound is capable of inhibiting the enzymatic activity of 14 out the 15 Gleevec resistant mutants studied by the UCLA researchers, Shah said.

“We are hopeful that if it is safely administered to people it will be of obvious value,” Shah said.

The Phase 1 trials are the first time a compound is administered to people and is “really designed to evaluate toxicities, however, occasionally it’s possible to see responses”, Shah said. “We are encouraged by what we are seeing thus far.”

Future studies by Shah and Sawyers may also prove to be beneficial to sufferers of gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

The investigative compound that the UCLA researchers have been studying came from the labs of Bristol Myers, Baum said.

“The drug was discovered in our labs, and we worked fully to explore it and do as many clinical trials as we can ... now the UCLA researchers are also conducting trials,” Baum added.