Chemotherapy

For years chemotherapy has been a mainstay in the war against cancer. While it can be very effective it can also come with some nasty side effects. Since chemo works by killing rapidly growing cells, it not only hits the cancer cells, but can also hit other rapidly growing cells too, including those in our hair roots, which is why many people undergoing chemo lose their hair.

So, the key to a truly effective anti-cancer therapy is one that does as much damage as possible to the cancer cells, and as little as possible to all the healthy cells in the body. A therapy being developed by Cellerant Therapeutics seems to have found that sweet spot in a new therapy targeting acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

AML starts in the bone marrow and quickly moves into the blood, where it can spread to other parts of the body. It is the second most common form of leukemia and claims around 10,000 lives in the US every year. Chemotherapy is the main weapon used against AML but it can also cause nausea, hair loss and other complications and in most cases has limited effectiveness because, over time, the leukemia cells get used to it.

In a study published in the journal Blood Advances, Cellerant researchers explain the limitations of existing treatments.

“The current standard of care for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is largely ineffective with very high relapse rates and low survival rates, mostly due to the inability to eliminate a rare population of leukemic stem cells (LSCs) that initiate tumor growth and are resistant to standard chemotherapy.”

Cellerant has developed a therapy called CLT030 which targets CLL1, a marker found on the surface of leukemia cells but not on normal blood stem cells. Preclinical studies in mice show CLT030 is able to zero in on this surface marker and attack the leukemia but do little damage to blood or other surrounding cells.

In a news release, Ram Mandalam, President and CEO of Cellerant, said this is encouraging news:

“AML remains a significant unmet medical need, and our therapy, CLT030, that can target leukemic stem cells precisely while minimally affecting normal hematopoietic stem cells could improve outcomes while avoiding much of the toxicities associated with conventional chemotherapy and other targeted therapeutics.”

Mandalam says they are now doing the late-stage preclinical testing to be able to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to start a clinical trial. CIRM is funding this stage of the research.