Until recently, treatment for cancer – though quite sophisticated in practice – has been limited to three basic approaches: killing cancer cells by removing them surgically, blasting them with radiation or poisoning them with chemotherapy. The goal is to destroy all malignant cells, curing the cancer and preventing remission. Even when these three approaches are used in combination and treatment is administered repeatedly, some cancer cells survive, and the disease can and does recur.
In a way, the flaw in this line of attack has been its ambition. In the last few years, a number of treatments have been approved with the more modest goal of simply holding cancer in check. They do this by blocking the cellular pathways that enable cancer cells to grow and flourish.
TAU Therapeutics, based on intellectual property patented at the University of Virginia by Timothy Macdonald, a medicinal chemist, and former faculty member Lloyd Gray, a pathologist, specializes in developing cancer-fighting drugs that control the calcium T-channel in cells – tiny transient openings in the cell membrane that allow calcium, which is necessary for cell proliferation, to enter the cell.
“If we can stop the tumor cells from dividing, we can provide a meaningful increase in lifespan,” Macdonald said.