Researchers eye drug to thwart melanoma cells Posted Sunday, December 26, 2004 by arjuna

bostonherald.com
By Brian Ballou Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Local researchers announced yesterday they may have found a way to stop the growth of deadly melanoma cells in humans, a breakthrough that may unlock treatments for other forms of cancer.

``This is exciting because it focuses on the precise pathways that are driving the cancer cells,'' said Dr. David E. Fisher, director of the melanoma program in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.

Since 2002, Fisher and other researchers at the institute and at Children's Hospital Boston have been busy trying to figure out how to combat the skin cancer melanoma, focusing on a protein called CDK2. They discovered melanoma can't grow without a steady supply of that protein.

By using drugs that cut off the supply of CDK2 to melanoma cells, they hope to beat back the cancer, which claims thousands of lives every year. Normal cells don't need CDK2, Fisher said.

``This may be a unique opportunity to not only understand the problem but aim a drug at that problem,'' Fisher said.

Shonda Schilling, the wife of Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2001. A year later, she created The Shade Foundation, with a goal to educate society about sun exposure. Melanoma has been linked to prolonged sun exposure.

``I welcome all efforts to prevent and cure malignant melanoma as the mother of four young children and in a high-risk family,'' she said from her home in Arizona.

So far, the breakthrough has occurred only in a petri dish. Clinical tests on humans are needed. Pharmaceutical companies are working to develop a CDK2-inhibitor, Fisher said. ``As soon as we found out about this, we were on the phone to the drug companies,'' he said.
According to the American Cancer Society, more than 55,000 people were diagnosed with melanoma in the United States this year. Melanoma is responsible for about 7,900 deaths this year in the United States, and the death toll is expected to rise in 2005.