Now, researchers at Dana Farber in Boston think that one of these compounds, beta-lapachone, acts as a powerful DNA damaging poison synergistic with Taxol. Whether humans will be able to tolerate the side effects at doses that have an effect on cancer may soon be tested in clinical trials. Cancer patients are not mice. Both of them have shown some results in treatment of hormone refractory prostate cancer. We've shown that drug combinations that act at different key points in the cycle of cell division are able to bring about cancer cell death.
Cells normally divide in a series of carefully timed steps.
During each stage of division, cells normally pause to make sure the new set of chromosomes is identical to the old. If not, the process of division is put on hold while repairs are made. If the damage to the chromosome is too extensive to be repaired, the cell will commit suicide rather than pass flawed DNA on to its descendants. These pauses in cell division are known as checkpoints. In cancer cells, the checkpoint at G1 fails to function, preventing the cell from dying.