OVER THE EDGE February 28, 2007 New Cancer Treatment HAAKON SULLIVAN STAPE WRITER Dr. Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta has stumbled upon what can be a massive relief for those who are suffering from cancer. This new treatment can be taken orally and. goes to those hard to reach places in the body, removing all the pains of chemotherapy and other treat- ments while being more effective. DCA (dichloroacetate) has been used almost exclusively for treating mitochondrial diseases in children. It has been known since the 1930’s that damage to the mitochondria is a reason why. these tumors grow and until re- cently it was a belief that the mito- chondrial cells were permanently damaged. “Cancer cells actively sup- press their mitochondria, which alters their metabolism, and this appears to offer cancer cells a significant advantage in growth compared to normal cells, as well as protection from many standard chemotherapies,” Dr. Michelakis said in a written statement pre- sented to CTV. With new research indicating _that the mitochondria are only suppressed and not damaged, Dr. Michelakis experimented with DCA on lab animals and human tumor samples to see what it would do. What happened is that the tumors began to shrink in both of the samples, giving strong sup- port to the theory on mitochon- drial damage as well finding a new treatment for cancer. One of the best qualities of the DCA is that it is cheap because there are no pharmaceutical com- panies who have a patent on it and is easy to produce, It is also non-texic and produces few side effects which is a great advantage compared to chemotherapy which has a large list of side effects. The chemical is also common enough that you could go to your average chemical store to buy it. The problem is that since they aren’t sponsored by a pharmaceut- ical company, finding funding is hard, slowing the rate of progress for DCA to be an official cancer treatment. As well, drug compan- ies have to make production and marketing plans for the drug to be more accessible to doctors as well as more suited more cancer treat- ment. With this chemical being ef- fective, cheap, and easy to find, all in the world would benefit from this research. This research is even more important to areas without public health care where people struggle to keep up with the high cost of chemotherapy. ‘In general, this is a very valuable tool to protect the people of the world from cancer. It can be said that Canada may be dealing with a discovery as important as penicil- tin. CAMERON ORR News Eprror Dr. Chow Lee, a UNBC bio- chemistry professor, and his team of researchers have made some discoveries about cancer and their results are paving the way to new treatment developments. Dr. Lee and others have dis- - covered an enzyme which is able to destroy two messenger RNA’s _ (mRNA), which are linked to can- cer. c-mye is one of the mRNA’s targeted by the enzyme, which causes the rapid growth of can- cer cells, and the other is MDRI, which blocks the a of cancer treatments. MDRI is particularly tricky, as it acts as a pump-house for any cancer drugs that = be being administered. “MDRI is involved i in | pump- _ seer RNA vey gene oa By Haakon SULLIVAN STABF WRITER Have you ever watched the Simpsons and have seen the epi- sode where Krusty the clown gets angry at his pet monkey for writ- ing such horrible scripts? Well, Krusty should have given him more time because it has been proven mathematically that any- thing choosing random buttons on a typewriter will eventually type a masterpiece such as a work by Shakespeare. To begin, let’s say that there is a monkey at a typewriter ran- domly smashing buttons on it with hopes of getting a banana. This typewriter has fifty keys and the odds of hitting a certain key is one in fifty. Let’s say for now that we are expecting the monkey to type the word “TREE” by using his particular typing skills. The _ them out. That’s why people ing drugs out of the cell,” says Lee, explaining how the cell reacts to treatment. ““Anti-cancer drugs can destroy cancer cells by destroying the DNA or the architecture. But cancer cells produce alot of « this [MDR1] protein. When anti-cancer drugs go in, can- cer cells are going to pump expression.” His boss at that time was also focusing on MDR1I which brought Dr. Lee into his current research. The new discoveries will one When anti-cancer drugs go in, cer cells are going to pump them out, of work to do before we get Thats why people believe patients some exciting results or break- through. The media likes to use “breakthrough”, we scientists don’t like to usé it. We like to use ‘excit- ing results’ or “exciting findings’. : We like to tone it down be- C47 cause we know there’s a lot [to a cure].” There was a corncem believe patients grow resist- grow es to chemotherapy freat- tegarding the restructur- ant to chemotherapy treat- ment.” Lee’s team is the first to recognize this enzyme that can counteract the forces of c-myc = MDRI.. The focus of their research Se ee student. ment. - Dr. Chow Lee day lead to new treatments but the public should not expect any im- mediate cures. _ “We're working on it now. - Our discoveries open up the pos- oS sibility for a system to find new “I worked with MDRI as | post-doc in Toronto. At that time drugs”, says Lee. Lee continues to explain the Scientist standpoint on the issue. “Now and then we do hear about ing many departments have been undergoing, with the university’s budget defi- cit, and how it related to Lee’s team’s research. Luckily, so far, no change has been felt regarding their progress on cancer research. “T have personally not felt any affect from it,” Lee says about “changes i in his department. “Pro- ‘gram restructuring is. happening as we speak. | think it’s still in discussion. They will make a de- Typing Monkeys odds of this happening will be one in fifty times itself four times to represent the odds of typing these letters in certain succession. So if you calculate that, you would see that the odds of typing “TREE” by randomly smashing four buttons on a typewriter is one in six million. So if it this unlikely that the monkey will type the four letter word we expected, how can we expect this monkey to type a Shakespeare? Well, the odds of the mon- key not typing the word “TREE” would be one minus the odds of getting the word “TREE” which results in a value very close to one hundred percent. This is for every random four letter sequence typed so we will have to put the probability of not getting the word “TREE” to the power of “n” where n is the number of times the mon- key presses four random letters. Since the probability of not getting the word “TREE” is less than one, multiplying it by itself “n” times will result in the prob- ability getting smaller and small- er. This means that if the monkey types a set. of four random letters millions of times, he will eventually type the word “TREE”. Let’s say that we are now expecting the mon- key to type a fifty thou- sand word book. The odds of typing this book when fifty thousand let- ters are pressed random- ; ly is one in fifty to the ; power of fifty thousand. : This is an incredibly ‘_ small chance, but you find the odds of it not Beare happening (l-odds of @ happening) and put it to the expo- nent “n”, you will find that it can be possible that it will be typed as “n” gets larger and larger. Essentially, if “n” is infinity the chances of the book not being typed will become zero, meaning that the book will eventually be cision this week.” Dr. Chow Lee was very hum- ble about the work that his stu- dents put into the research. Lee was quick to give all credit he could to those who work with him and study with him “Our students are very import- ant for our research, They basic- ally carried out our research for us. They generate results and are very important. Without them we basically have nothing to report on. Without them we're nothing.” His team is a beacon of pride for the north region. Out of 12 stu- dents, he has 5 graduate students, 4 of which are from the north. One student is from Terrace, and three students are from right here in - Prince ae typed. You can apply this to any book, but good luck if you live to see the book fully typed. A website produced a program that simulet- ed this to type Julius Caesar, and only got as far as “Flauius. Hence: home you idle” after five years. all the cool cats are doing it...