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Technology – TherapeuticVisualizing and Targeting the Cause of the Cancer. The key to designing effective and less toxic therapies for cancer is to hit targets essential for cancer cell survival, but not required for normal cell survival. The cellular process known as Programmed Cell Death, or Apoptosis (Greek word meaning: falling leaves), is vital for maintaining healthy tissue. By this process damaged cells self destruct and are removed from healthy tissue before they can become cancerous. Cancer cells select for blocks in apoptosis as they accumulate the damage that makes them cancer cells. Cancer cells depend on these blocks for survival, but normal cells do not. Overcoming these blocks is therefore a way to selectively target cancer cells and force them to undergo apoptosis. Eutropics is developing drugs that target the apoptotic machinery precisely where it is blocked in order to trigger cell death in cancer cells that otherwise evade control. To guide this process and to guide the use of the drugs Eutropics relies on a unique and powerful tool that enables the clinician to see where apoptosis is blocked in a particular patient’s cancer. If that block is caused by the protein that our treatment targets then it is prescribed as therapy. The assay then becomes an important accompanying tool, or companion to our therapeutic that guides both its clinical development and use. |
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