Pancreatic cancer: stressed to death

U.S. and EU researchers have shown that the generic malaria drug chloroquine can treat pancreatic cancer by inhibiting autophagy,¹ a process by which cells degrade their own cytosolic components to prolong cell survival. The team already has a chloroquine analog in a Phase II pancreatic cancer trial sponsored by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Autophagy is a normal cellular response to nutrient starvation and other cellular stress, but its functions in cancer are complex and not well understood. Indeed, prior studies have shown that promoting autophagy increased the efficacyof targeted therapies in colon and breast cancer cell lines² and of gene therapies in primary human brain cancer cells,³ whereas inhibiting autophagy synergized with chemotherapy to treat lymphoma in mice.⁴...