The lessons Stanford virologist Jeffrey Glenn learned while developing new ways to thwart viruses like hepatitis and the common cold have helped him build a drug that appears to be effective in mice against cancer. The new drugs disrupt otherwise normal cellular processes that some viruses and certain tumors rely on to grow and spread.
The results of these experiments, reported in the Jan. 22 edition of Science Translational Medicine, are encouraging enough that Glenn is now pursuing larger studies to see if his approach could work in humans. In an interview with AFP, he explains why.
In a series of PBS and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) dissolution experiments, a fenbendazole analytical standard and samples of three different LOT numbers from two commercial powder brands were tested. Quantification of fenbendazole was done by HPLC and confirmed with LC-MS. The results showed that fenbendazole is well-soluble in both PBS and DMSO, and the quantities measured were in good agreement with those mentioned on the products’ labels.
The effect of 2-h and 24-h treatments with fenbendazole on the viability of EMT6 cells was evaluated in culture medium and in hypoxic conditions. Cell numbers decreased after treatment with fenbendazole in both media, but the changes were not influenced by the oxygen concentration in the medium. Similarly, in hypoxic conditions, the 24-h treatment with fenbendazole resulted in significant decreases in both cell number and clonogenicity of the cells. fenbendazole for cancer