An experimental drug that attacks cancer in an entirely new way has shown promise in treating advanced melanoma, delaying progression of the disease and prolonging the lives of patients. Giving the new drug in addition to chemotherapy more than doubled the amount of time patients survived without progression of their cancer.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered a novel mechanism that works over an extensive genomic distance and controls the expression of human growth hormone (hGH) in the pituitary gland. This mechanism involves a newly discovered set of "non-coding RNAs" expressed in the vicinity of the hGH gene.
By examining the relationship between these non-coding RNAs and the hGH gene, researchers hope to understand how these remote regions impact hGH gene expression and dysfunction. Such insight may aid researchers in the development of therapeutics for growth hormone defects and lead to a greater understanding of the causes of other genetic disorders.
With every step forward in understanding how genes are expressed, we increase our awareness of how naturally occurring and acquired mutations interfere with this process. Research sets the groundwork for advances in diagnosis and eventual treatment of genetic diseases
(National Institutes of Health.)

Labels: cancer, dysfunction, experimental drug, genetic, hgh, mutations