Australia finds drug to inhibit blood cancer cells

After three decades of research and four years of testing, Australian researchers have found a drug that helps gradually eliminate blood cancer cells from the body.

Cancer patients may finally find a treatment that offers a significant chance of survival, as Australian researchers have discovered a miracle drug that has dramatically improved the health of most patients and in some cases has completely cured the disease, Russia Today reported.

The results of this study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 28.

The new drug works by attacking a specific protein called BCL-2, which helps cancer cells survive in the human body.

Trials of the new cancer drug Venetoclax have been conducted in Melbourne over the past four years on 116 patients.

The new drug works on the principle of attacking a specific protein called BCL-2 that helps cancer cells survive in the human body (Photo: Reuters).

Accordingly, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said they found that the drug Venetoclax has the ability to significantly reduce cancer cells in the blood.

Positive results were reported in 79% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (a type of blood cancer). Some patients who had previously been treated after undergoing a trial of the new drug made a full recovery.

This is truly historic news as it marks the first clinical trial of a drug that is the result of nearly three decades of research.

Professor John Seymour, representative of the research team, shared with the Sydney Morning Herald: “What has been achieved after nearly 30 years of cooperation with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Australia) and pharmaceutical companies in Australia and the US proves that the research goal can be achieved.

This is a completely new generation of drugs and there is currently no other drug that can inhibit the BCL-2 protein like this drug."

Researchers discovered this BCL-2 protein in the 1980s but could not find a substance that could inhibit it. Under the influence of the new drug Venetoclax, the proteins that provide life to leukemia cells are inhibited, thereby leading to their gradual elimination from the body.

According to Professor John Seymour, the therapeutic uses of this drug also extend to many other forms of cancer and leukemia than those tested.

Patient Rodney Jacobs, 63, owner of a record store in Melbourne, said he was invited to participate in a new drug trial in 2012 after undergoing other treatments, including chemotherapy, without success.

“At that point, things seemed pretty hopeless,” said Rodney Jacobs. “The results weren’t that dramatic… But I had little to no side effects and I was slowly getting back to work. Then I slowly but surely got back to normal life.”

According to VOV