Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise BOSTON -- Developing and testing a new anti-cancer drug can cost billions of dollars and take many years of research. Finding an effective anti-cancer medication from the pool of drugs already approved for the treatment of other medical conditions could cut a considerable amount of time and money from the process. Now, using a novel bioinformatics approach, a team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that the approved antimicrobial drug pentamidine may help in the treatment of patients with advanced kidney cancer. Described online in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, the discovery reveals how linking cancer gene expression patterns with drug activity might help advance cancer care. The strategy of repurposing drugs that are currently being used for other indications is of significant interest to the medical community as well as the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, says senior author Towia Libermann, PhD, Director of the Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Our results demonstrate that bioinformatics approaches involving the analysis and matching of cancer and drug gene signatures can indeed help us identify new … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 5-May-2014 Contact: Bonnie Prescott bprescot@bidmc.harvard.edu 617-667-7306 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center BOSTON -- Developing and testing a new anti-cancer drug can cost billions of dollars and take many years of research. Finding an effective anti-cancer medication from the pool of drugs already approved for the treatment of other medical conditions could cut a considerable amount of time and money from the process. Now, using a novel bioinformatics approach, a team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that the approved antimicrobial drug pentamidine may help in the treatment of patients with advanced kidney cancer. Described online in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, the discovery reveals how linking cancer gene expression patterns with drug activity might help advance cancer care. "The strategy of repurposing drugs that are currently being used for other indications is of significant interest to the medical community as well as the pharmaceutical and biotech industries," says senior author Towia Libermann, PhD, Director of the Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Center at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Our results demonstrate that bioinformatics approaches involving the analysis and matching of cancer and drug gene signatures … Continue reading →