Cancer

The term cancer comprises a number of diseases, caused by DNA changes in cells, making them proliferate and grow out of control, invade surrounding tissue and spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph system.

Deciphering cancer biology

The human body consists of billions of cells with different structures and functions. New cells are continuously formed through cell division to replace those that are destroyed by natural cell death. The shape, function, and development of each individual cell are tightly controlled by the genes, holding the specific biological code and constituting parts of a very long, spiral-formed molecule, the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in the cell nucleus. The DNA holds the complete recipe of a human being counting approximately 35,000 genes. When a cell is about to divide, the DNA molecule is packed into 23 chromosome pairs for the combined genetic material to be passed on to the two new cells formed in the division.

During the last decade and in particular since the decoding of the human genome around year 2000, tremendous advances have been made in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of cancer. It is currently well-known that cancer occurs due to a number of accumulated changes in the DNA, interrupting the natural cell processes and disturbing the cell balance. The in-depth understanding of the molecular changes causing the cancer, enables a targeted and new approach in cancer therapy.

Cancer therapy

Cancer cells are genetically unstable and have lost a number of control functions and traditional chemotherapy, so-called cytostatics, are effective anti-cancer drugs because they exploit these changes. Cytostatics are more toxic for the cancer cells than for healthy cells even though their effect on healthy cells causes a number of serious side effects. Existing chemotherapeutics and radiotherapy, however effective, seldom manage to kill all the cancer cells. The remaining cancer cells may continue their uninhibited growth and develop into a new tumor. This tumor will be resistant to compounds from previous treatments. Consequently, there is a large need for therapeutic options with different mode of action.

Combining complementary drugs to achieve

maximum cancer cell kill

Topotarget A/S' approach to developing new and improved cancer therapeutics acknowledge chemotherapy and radiotherapy as important components in cancer treatment but that these agents by themselves are inadequate because of inherited or acquired drug resistance. Hence there is a need and great potential for new and improved non-cross-resistant anti-cancer drugs.