OCRF Research Shows that Combining Targeted Agents is Effective Against Ovarian Cancer

New research funded in part by OCRF has shown that combining microRNA and siRNAs may be an effective new approach to developing better targeted therapies for ovarian cancer.  The research was reported in the November 2013 issue of Cancer Discovery, where the findings were also highlighted in an editorial commentary.  The research was funded in part by a Program Project Development Grant to Anil Sood, MD.

“Targeted” therapeutic approaches are an important area of research in the pursuit of better treatments for ovarian cancer.  Targeting specific disease-causing genes can effectively combat cancer without causing significant, negative side effects.  Unfortunately, because these targeted drugs only hit one target, the body can more easily acquire resistance to them.  A better approach, which has been explored in the research reported in this publication, is to couple multiple targeted agents, or to use one agent that hits multiple locations.

Researchers here combined two different types of targeted agents (siRNA and miRNA), and found that they produced superior results.  In the accompanying commentary, the authors write that “these studies open the door to a multitude of potential therapeutic combinations,” and that as more of these kinds of drugs enter trials and researchers understand more about how they work, “the ability to target relevant biologic pathways in combination becomes an achievable reality.”

Click here to read the abstract.