Cancer Post Comparison

The two blog posts that I found particularly interesting are:
"Possible Cure for Skin Cancer?????"
Davies, Helen (2002). Mutations of the BRAF gene in human cancers. The Journal Nature. Retrieved February 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.nature.com\nature

"Drug Resistant Lung Cancer"
Science (May 18, 2007) vol.316.no.5827, pp 1039-1043

The information that is presented in both of these summaries is noteworthy because both skin cancer and lung cancers are common cancers that affect millions of people. Researchers have discovered what is the cause of these cancers. Both cancers arise do to the disfunction of a specific receptor. Before these new found discoveries there was no effective treatment for these cancers. Now that researchers have "pin pointed" the cause for these cancers there is hope that there will be development of new cancer treatment that will effectively treat these cancers.

The commonalities between the posts are that both cancers effect organs one being the skin and the other is the lungs. Also the type of mutation in which the cancer arises from is a point mutation that occurs on a receptor of a certain gene. The genes that are involved are BRAF for skin cancer and EGFR for lung cancer. These mutaions relate to BI490 lectures because there are different things that can occur when there is a point mutation of a recptor. In the case of BRAF it normally acts as a proto-oncogene but when mutaion occurs it transforms in to an oncogene. As learned in class a proto-oncogene is a normally acting gene and an oncogene is the mutated form of a proto-oncogene. Proto-oncogenes regulate cell proliferation. Oncogenes allow uncontrollable cell proliferation. EGFR is a kinase. Kinases induce phosphorylation. During phosphorylation ATP phosphorylates a receptor by donating two phosphates; which causes ATP to convert in ADP. The process of phosphorylation causes cell proliferation. Normally ATP has to be present in order for phosporylation to occur. Only ATP is capable of donating the two phosphates. When a mutation occurs on the EGFR receptor it changes the structure of the receptor. Now phosphorylation can occur even if only ADP is present. The similar research that is present in both posts is that there is not any very effective treatment for BRAF skin cancer nor EGFR lung cancer.

Questions that are unanswerer after reading both articles is are researchers using these very same studies to test on a broader population in order to see in they recieve the same results? Do they plan to expand the time period in which the studies were conducted to see if that has an effect on there data? Specifically how do they plan to use these discoveries to make new drig treatment for these specific types of cancers?