Anticancer Activity
Researchers are investigating whether protease inhibitors could possibly be used to treat cancer. For example, nelfinavir and atazanavir are able to kill tumor cells in culture (in a Petri dish). This effect has not yet been examined in humans; but studies in laboratory mice have shown that nelfinavir is able to suppress the growth of tumors in these animals, which represents a promising lead towards testing this drug in humans as well.
Inhibitors of the proteasome, such as Velcade/Bortezomib are now front-line drugs for the treatment of various cancers, notably Multiple Myeloma.
Read more about this topic: Protease Inhibitor (pharmacology)
Famous quotes containing the word activity:
“Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)