When Raphael Rodriguez realized that the medical school was not for him and left after the first year, he was forced to reconsider his entire life plan.
“I knew that I was still destined to help people in one way or another,” he told DailyMail.com.
He exchanged scrubs for a laboratory jacket and learned from top organic chemists in Oxford and Cambridge.
It was in the lab – not the lecture hall – that he had his revelation.
“Very fast, I realized that when you know which compound you have to make, and if you are able to make it, you might take a medicine and heal many more people than you if you want to become a doctor.”
Now, years later, that vision can come true – Rodriguez and his team have designed a powerful new compound that can prevent cancer from doing what it does best: spreading and killing.
The experimental molecule is called Fentomycine-1 and focuses on one of the most dangerous cancer weapons to metastasize to other parts of the body-that is responsible for at least 70 percent of cancer deaths. The rest is due to complications of localized tumors or blood cancer.
“If you look at the literature, you quickly realize that 70 percent of cancer patients do not collapse for the primary tumor, but the metastatic spread,” said Rodriguez.
After years of research in chemical biology that can be used to combat cancer, Dr. have Raphael Rodriguez and his team developed a molecule that could save millions from dead caused by the cancer spreading to other parts of the body
“I realized the gap. The treatments we have are not enough – they are not designed to focus on metastasis and they are not designed to focus the capacity of a cell to migrate. ‘
Cancer cells hoard iron in special compartments called lysosomes, making them more aggressive – but also gives them a hidden weakness.
The same iron can cause a process called ferroptosis, which destroys the cancer cell from the inside.
Rodriguez said: “We conceptualize the fact that cancer cells can exploit iron chemistry to adapt, change identity, to be plastic, to become invasive.”
But at the same time, he said, iron is chemically active (Redox-Active), which means that it reacts easily with molecules in cells.
“The article that we have just published exploits that finding, in fact: can we develop a connection that would gather in the cell where iron is loaded, and can we manipulate the chemistry of iron?”
Rodriguez, a French biochemist, helped with the development of fentomycin-1, a molecule that supercharge ferroptosis.
In early laboratory tests, metastatic cancer cells were wiped out in less than 12 hours.
Cancer cells aggressively in stock of iron in lysosomes to feed their distribution – but this creates a fatal mistake. The same iron can cause ferroptosis, a self -destruction mechanism that corrodes tumors from within
“And this was spectacular,” said Rodriguez.
‘Cancer patients are currently dying – specifically in this population [with these cancers].
“And it was very gratifying for us to see that we are able to design a compound that does what we wanted to do.”
The team tested Fento-1 in aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and sarcomas, a group of rare malignant tumors that form in bones or soft tissues-all known for resistance to medicines, high iron levels and grim survival opportunities.
For mice injected with breast cancer cells, the medicine delayed the tumor growth and activated the immune system, making it possible a two-punch with existing treatments.
It also worked well in combination with chemotherapy, especially with pancreatic cancer.
The Rodriguez lab even tested tumormonsters who were taken directly from patients after surgery.
The connection reduced the number of cells with CD44, a protein that helps cancer to resist and spread to new organs.
The Rodriguez team tested Fento-1 in aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and sarcomas, a group of rare malignant tumors that form in bones or soft tissues-all known for resistance to medicines, high iron levels and grim chances of survival
Because cancer cells have higher iron levels than surrounding healthy tissue, Fento-1 can focus on tumors with precision, so that normal cells remain relatively unharmed.
Clinical examinations will be needed to determine whether these molecules can be used as new cancer treatments.
Before that time, Rodriguez said, his team will have to raise money for the next investigation phase, which will determine basic knowledge about how the compound could deal with living human cells in the body.
But Rodriguez is clear – there will be financing, testing and more time.
‘There are still a few more [data sets] that are not published, and what we have to do now is [figure out] Can we scale up the compound, it is stable, is it biologically available, can we take it with IV, how is it dissolved in the body, what is its clearance? ‘
“At the moment,” he added, “we are happy with the compound we made.”
The findings of his team were published in the diary Nature.
Metastatic cancer cells are skilled in resisting chemotherapy by developing ways to prevent the medicine from entering the cell and by learning radiation treatments how they can repair damage to their DNA to help them survive survival
When cancer cells spread outside their original place in the body, or spread, it becomes considerably more difficult to treat and reach.
Metastatic cancer cells can adapt to new, hostile environments, such as unknown organs and tissues, adapting their metabolism and the immune system is too smart.
They are also skilled in resisting chemotherapy by developing ways to prevent the medicine from entering the cell and by learning radiation treatments how they can repair damage to their DNA to help them survive.
Estimating the exact number of Americans that lives with metastatic cancer at any time is a challenge due to limited real -time tracking.
The National Cancer Institute estimated in 2018 that there was More than 623,000 People in the US who live with the six most common metastatic cancers – bladder, chest, colorectal, lung, melanoma, prostate.
It is expected that that percentage would rise to almost 700,000 in 2025.
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