Cisplatin, gemcitabine, and treosulfan in relapsed stage IV cutaneous malignant melanoma patients

To evaluate the efficacy of cisplatin, gemcitabine, and treosulfan (CGT) in 91 patients with pretreated relapsed AJCC stage IV cutaneous malignant melanoma. Patients in relapse after first-, second-, or third-line therapy received 40 mg m−2 intravenous (i.v.) cisplatin, 1000 mg m−2 i.v. gemcitabine, and 2500 mg m−2 i.v. treosulfan on days 1 and 8. Cisplatin, gemcitabine, and treosulfan therapy was repeated every 5 weeks until progression of disease occurred. A maximum of 11 CGT cycles (mean, two cycles) was administered per patient. Four patients (4%) showed a partial response; 15 (17%) patients had stable disease; and 72 (79%) patients progressed upon first re-evaluation. Overall survival of all 91 patients was 6 months (2-year survival rate, 7%). Patients with partial remission or stable disease exhibited a median overall survival of 11 months (2-year survival rate, 36%), while patients with disease progression upon first re-evaluation had a median overall survival of 5 months (2-year survival rate, 0%). Treatment with CGT was efficient in one-fifth of the pretreated relapsed stage IV melanoma patients achieving disease stabilisation or partial remission with prolonged but limited survival

Identification of Novel Functional Inhibitors of Acid Sphingomyelinase

We describe a hitherto unknown feature for 27 small drug-like molecules, namely functional inhibition of acid sphingomyelinase (ASM). These entities named FIASMAs (Functional Inhibitors of Acid SphingoMyelinAse), therefore, can be potentially used to treat diseases associated with enhanced activity of ASM, such as Alzheimer's disease, major depression, radiation- and chemotherapy-induced apoptosis and endotoxic shock syndrome. Residual activity of ASM measured in the presence of 10 µM drug concentration shows a bimodal distribution; thus the tested drugs can be classified into two groups with lower and higher inhibitory activity. All FIASMAs share distinct physicochemical properties in showing lipophilic and weakly basic properties. Hierarchical clustering of Tanimoto coefficients revealed that FIASMAs occur among drugs of various chemical scaffolds. Moreover, FIASMAs more frequently violate Lipinski's Rule-of-Five than compounds without effect on ASM. Inhibition of ASM appears to be associated with good permeability across the blood-brain barrier. In the present investigation, we developed a novel structure-property-activity relationship by using a random forest-based binary classification learner. Virtual screening revealed that only six out of 768 (0.78%) compounds of natural products functionally inhibit ASM, whereas this inhibitory activity occurs in 135 out of 2028 (6.66%) drugs licensed for medical use in humans

Heterogenität und Kooperation im Gemeinsamen Unterricht Entwicklung und Evaluation fakultätsübergreifender Lehrerbildung

Münch J, Koch-Priewe B. Heterogenität und Kooperation im Gemeinsamen Unterricht Entwicklung und Evaluation fakultätsübergreifender Lehrerbildung. In: Platte A, Seitz S, Terfloth K, eds. Inklusive Bildungsprozesse. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt; 2006: 159-170

Exploring potency and selectivity receptor antagonist profiles using a multilabe classification approach: the human adenosine receptor as a key study

Nowadays, in medicinal chemistry adenosine receptors represent some of the most studied targets, and there is growing interest on the different adenosine receptor (AR) subtypes. The AR subtypes selectivity is highly desired in the development of potent ligands to achieve the therapeutic success. So far, very few ligand-based strategies have been investigated to predict the receptor subtypes selectivity. In the present study, we have carried out a novel application of the multilabel classification approach by combining our recently reported autocorrelated molecular descriptors encoding for the molecular electrostatic potential (autoMEP) with support vector machines (SVMs). Three valuable models, based on decreasing thresholds of potency, have been generated as in series quantitative sieves for the simultaneous prediction of the hA(1)R, hA(2A)R, hA(2B)R, and hA(3)R subtypes potency profile and selectivity of a large collection, more than 500, of known inverse agonists such as xanthine, pyrazolo-triazolo-pyrimidine, and triazolo-pyrimidine analogues. The robustness and reliability of our multilabel classification models were assessed by predicting an internal test set. Finally, we have applied our strategy to 13 newly synthesized pyrazolo-triazolo-pyrimidine derivatives inferring their full adenosine receptor potency spectrum and hAR subtypes selectivity profile