"PUDUCHERRY: A team led by an associate professor of Pondicherry University has claimed to have identified seven new molecules to treat a type of blood cancer (chronic myelogenous leukemia or CML). CML is a type of blood cancer characterized by uncontrolled growth of white blood corpuscles (WBCs) in the bone marrow leading to imbalance in the total blood cell count in the body.
The team consisting of associate professor of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology R Baskaran, assistant professor M Suresh Kumar and PhD scholars Hemanth Naick Banavath and Om Prakash Sharma found that five of the seven yet-to-be-named new molecules (codenamed DB07107, DB06977, ST013616, DB04200, ST007180, ST019342 and DB01172) are more potent than the existing drugs such as ponatinib, imatinib, dasatinib and nilotinib available in the market to treat blood cancer.
"Drugs manufactured using these newly-identified molecules will be more effective than the existing drugs as they arrest the progression of CML by binding the enzymes in the bone marrow that lead to overproduction of WBCs. These drugs will be at least twice more potent than the existing ones," said Baskaran, who has more than 20 years experience in cancer research abroad."
Extrait de Pondicherry University team finds 7 new molecules to treat blood cancer