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La Lettre
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elaboration of microscopes – has parti-
cularly fed development studies, immu-
nology, neurosciences and physiology,
resulting in the identification of many
mechanisms of diseases. Studying genes
has proved decisive, both in the identi-
fication of more than 3 000 monogenic
hereditary diseases – enabling precise
diagnoses and genetic counselling to
be provided – and in the observation of
acquired genetic disorders associated
with cancer. For instance, the identifica-
tion of a fusion transcript between the
BCR
and
ABL
genes – which gives birth
to an aberrant kinase – made it possible
to understand the physiopathology of one
of the most common forms of leukaemia:
chronic myelogenous leukaemia. This
resulted, by 2000, in the development of
a family of inhibitors against this kinase,
whose use controls the disease (complete remission) and, sometimes, cures it. This is a most illustrative
example of the power of the reductionist scientific approach to medicine as we have been observing it for
the last 20 years. Let’s also mention the development of anti-infective agents against viruses, and that of
new hypertensive or new anticoagulant drugs.
On the whole, combining these approaches has expanded the therapeutic palette:
●
Thanks to the nanotechnologies, drug vectorization makes it pos-
sible to improve drug availibility inside the cell, in particular.
●
Biotherapies take an ever-growing part in the production of new
drugs. Thus, the development of more and more elaborated and
increasingly well-tolerated monoclonal antibodies (MAb) has
contributed to the development of efficient treatment against
chronic diseases – such as rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s di-
sease (anti-TNF MAb) – or lethal diseases – lymphomas (anti-
C20 MAb), or several cancers whose prognosis until then was
hopeless, as metastatic melanoma and some forms of lung can-
cer (anti-PD1, -PDL1, -CTLA4 MAb).
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© Sebastian Kaulitzki - Fotolia