Linda & family, Kalamazoo
Remember
this name: Olaparib. Olaparib is a PARP inhibitor, one of several
immunotherapy approaches to cancer therapy.
Lately it has been shown to be effective against ovarian cancer, both
the kind involved with BRCA mutation, and wild-type BRCA occurrences.
“Wild-type” in the curious language of
medicine, most often merely means “normal”.
It arose from initial study of fruit flies: they would put a chunk of
rotten fruit on the window-sill, then capture the inevitable fruit flies and
put them in a bottle. They were looking
for mutants, recognized by having red eyes.
The rest were just “wild type”
Can you
imagine a career spent looking at fruit flies under a microscope? I’d almost rather be a dentist.
And, in the
first paragraph, where I used the word effective, I really meant “effective”. Olaparib prolongs remission in some cases,
but in its present state is not a cure.
Olaparib is
a product of AstroZenica, a Swedish-UK amalgam headquartered in
Britain. Its shares currently sell for
about $39. Do not regard that as
investment advice.
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