I have had a Google Alert for DMAPT, the parthenolide analogue (see my page on this topic), for ages, now. Whenever I receive a Google Alert on DMAPT, I get all excited, only to discover that it frequently is about a meeting of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Physics Teachers. Aaargh! I am also on a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society alert list for the DMAPT clinical trial, which was supposed to begin months ago in the UK. Until this morning, though, I hadn’t even heard a whisper about the clinical trial that was supposed to begin months ago in the UK.

Well, early this morning I discovered why. A blogging friend, Dave, to whom I owe an immense debt of gratitude!, informed me that the acronym DMAPT has been changed to LC-1. You’ve got to be kidding….double-aaargh!

Okay, but let’s not get lost in trivial matters, because, guess what?, dramatic drum roll!: the LC-1 clinical trial has begun. Yes indeedie…it began…a few weeks ago…at Cardiff University…in the UK! Hah! I am absolutely delighted, of course.

I began doing research immediately, but the more I looked the more I was puzzled. Some sources referred to DMAPT and LC-1 as the same exact thing, whereas others (http://tinyurl.com/dl7go3) called it a novel dimethylamino-parthenolide analogue. An analogue of…an analogue? That made no sense. Moreover, I was left with the doubt that, unlike DMAPT, LC-1 might not attack the leukemic stem cells. I found no mention of this anywhere, you see.

So I decided to write to one of the top DMAPT researchers (with whom I corresponded briefly last year), who responded within a few hours in spite of the time difference between the U.S. and Italy. Lovely person, incidentally. Well, it’s simple enough, and I quote from the researcher’s e-mail: LC-1 is simply the commercial designation for DMAPT, they are the same drug. Phew! Relief!

The most recent LC-1 news release that I could find is the one that Dave sent to me this morning (the DMAPT researcher sent me the same link, thank you!): http://tinyurl.com/blzqcs As you can see, apart from confirming that the trial has actually begun!, the main titbit is that so far LC-1 has been well tolerated by the patients in the study. Good!

Note: LC-1 is not a new acronym, by the way (how could I have missed that??? Dear, dear…). I came across this “Molecular Cancer Therapeutics” study that was published in 2007: http://tinyurl.com/ctuzj8. LC-1 was tested, successfully, together with Sulindac, a COX inhibitor, against pancreatic cancer in vitro and in vivo (= mice).

Well, we will just have to be sit back and be patient for a while…but you can rest assured that I will change my Google Alert…! Che roba!