Science / Medicine : Chemicals Tested on Cancer

A new family of chemicals may be able to halt the progression of cancer without killing healthy cells and thus without the unpleasant side effects associated with cancer chemotherapy. The chemicals would work by shutting off the genetic switch within cancer cells that tells them to proliferate, said chemist Roland K. Robins of the Nucleic Acid Research Institute in Costa Mesa, a joint venture of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co.

One such chemical developed by Robins is tiazofurin, which is chemically similar to one of the building blocks of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the cell’s genetic blueprint. In tests at Indiana University sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, tiazofurin brought about a significant remission in five patients in the final stage of acute myeloid leukemia, he said.