Developed by the US-based healthcare company, Abbott, the new compound called ABT-737 is currently being assessed at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia on its potential as a cancer drug that may prove to be more effective and less toxic than the current chemotherapy drugs.

While the conventional chemotherapy drugs target and attempt to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, ABT-737 attempts to reactivate the healthy and normal cell death program that failed to kill the unwanted cells on cue, thereby preventing the damage many normal tissues and preventing side effects of chemotherapy.

According to Dr David Huang, WEHI's leading researcher with the assessment project:

"Normally, the cell death machinery is switched on when damaged cells need to be removed. The failure of the machinery to be turned on when it should can lead to cancer. ABT-737 is a 'switch flicker' that kicks the cell death machinery into action.

Much more remains to be done to assess the drug's safety and effectiveness in patients, but early results from the laboratory are promising. Our hope is that the new drug will prove to be more effective while having fewer side effects."

The findings are published in the 13 November 2006 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.

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