Among the latest recipients of the annual Kaye Prizes are two young scientists, one who developed a kit for examining the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs and another who discovered that hashish can be effective as an anti-inflammatory drug.
By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
Established by British pharmaceutical industrialist Isaac Kaye and his wife Myrna in 1994, the Kaye Prizes are aimed at encouraging the faculty and staff of Jerusalem's Hebrew University to develop innovative methods with good commercial potential that will benefit both the university and society as a whole.
One of this year's prizewinners is Miriam V. Kott-Gutkowsky, a 28-year-old doctoral student born in Argentina. Kott-Gutkowsky produced a kit - now patented - for examining the
effectiveness of drugs used to kill malignant cells in cancer patients.
Chemotherapy is one of the main clinical weapons against cancer, which claims more than two million victims a year in western countries. However, certain malignant tumors have become resistant to many of the anti-cancer drugs, and often this resistance is only revealed after months of chemotherapy, with all of its accompanying complications and discomforts. Resistance by the cancerous cells to toxic drugs directed against them is due to the presence in their membranes of drug-resistant proteins, which are able to "pump out" the anti-cancer drugs. One of these proteins is called P-glycoprotein, which can undergo "over-expression," sucking the drug out of the cell, and so preventing cell death.
Researchers and drug companies have been trying to develop blockers that can inhibit the sucking activity of P-glycoprotein, thus exposing the cancerous cells to the chemotherapeutic drugs. But not all of these blockers are universally effective. Until now, the only option for cancer patients was to undergo chemotherapy treatment on a trial-and-error basis with various combinations of toxic drugs and blockers until the right treatment was found. This hit-or-miss approach, however, causes many patients much unnecessary suffering.
The new kit nullifies the need for cancer patients to expose themselves to chemical treatment that is ineffective or even harmful. Using a blood sample from the patient into which tumorous membranes (that include the P-glycoprotein) and a blocker are added, the kit immediately detects whether that particular blocker is effective or not. In this way, many different blockers can be tested quickly and efficiently until the most effective one for the patient is found. Patents have been registered for the kit by the university's Yissum Research Development Company, and MDR Tests Ltd., has been established for designing the diagnostic kit for production.
And if your joints are "going to pot", a hashish derivative may be your salvation. Susanna Tchilibon, a 32-year-old immigrant from Italy and a doctoral student at the University's School of Pharmacy, has discovered that a substance taken from the drug acts as an anti-inflammatory drug for rheumatoid arthritis. Tchilibon says that hashish, which is derived from the Indian hemp plant, has been used since ancient times for treating ailments such as malaria, constipation and rheumatic pains. The plant has both psychoactive (affecting the mind) and non-psychoactive constituent elements.
Tchilibon investigated the metabolism of the major non-psychoactive material in hashish, called cannabidiol (CBD) and found that an acid derived from CBD is a potent anti-inflammatory agent. This acid is comparable to the known drug indomethacin, but without its considerable gastr-intestinal side effects. To her knowledge, the use of hashish or marijuana (another hemp plant derivative) has never been shown to cause those side effects. A patent based on her work has also been registered via the university's Yissum Research Development Company, and further evaluation is anticipated to test the effectiveness of the acid, particularly as a potential treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.