Chemistry s Role in the Treatment of Cancer

Early interactions between chemistry and medicine had been disappointing. Dr. Harvey a 17thcentury physician, had once called chemist the most ignorant, flatulent, fleshy and vainlyboasting sort of mankind. The mutual animosity between chemistry and medicine persisteduntil 1849, when Dr. Hofmann, acknowledged the chasm between medicine and chemistry. In1828, a German scientist, Wohler showed that boiling ammonium cyanate, formed urea, achemical produced by kidney. Organic and inorganic chemical was proved to be interchangeable.Biology is chemistry; a human body was no different from a bag of busily reactingchemicals. Another German scientist, Ehrlich once explained his idea that, it should be possibleto find artificial substances that can specifically cure certain diseases. Cancer has beenaround as long as we have been around. In 400 BC, Hippocrates named the disease Karkinos(carcinos) or crab. For thousands of years we had no drug to treat cancer and physiciansaround the world including Abu Ali Sina and Razi either removed, burned or treated cancerwith natural remedies. Chemotherapy started in 1947 with an antifolate drug, aminopetrinmade in the laboratory of a chemist, as well as an Indian physician called, Subbarao. In 1970s,chemotherapy became the battleground of war against cancer. Cancer research was acceleratedin 1970s when US government approved an independent budget for National Cancer Instituteand the molecular biologist finally discovered the genetic basis of cancer. In two decades,more than 100 oncogenes were discovered and researcher tried to develop targeted drugs forcancers. In 1990s the development of small molecules that interfere with oncogene’s activitiesas well as biological drugs such monoclonal antibodies offered new approaches to combatcancer more efficiently. In 1994, I developed a different strategy to develop safe drugs, usinggenomic information. The technology was named DNAi and one such drug, an inhibitor ofbcl-2 oncogene, was successfully used to treat relapsed non-Hodgkin Lymphoma’s patients inUSA. We have submitted our IND application to conduct a phase II clinical trial in Isfahan/Iran as soon as we receive the ethic committee approval.