Young cancer patient
Alexandra Munoz, 5, who lost her hair due to chemotherapy to treat a malignant brain tumor, climbs stairs in the cancer ward of the Luis Calvo Mackenna Hospital in Santiago October 20, 2014. The wigs, handmade by Italian-Chilean hair stylist Marcelo Avatte and his team, have helped the children regain their self-esteem and confidence during cancer treatment. Renowned for making customised wigs, Avatte has donated more than 300 wigs since 2009 and says he was motivated to begin the project by the pain he felt when his own son lost his hair during chemotherapy. Picture taken October 20, 2014. Reuters

The development of drugs and treatment for cancer could now be faster and more effective with the improvement of the world's largest database for cancer drug discovery using 3D structures. The structures show faulty proteins and maps of cancer's communication networks that will allow scientists worldwide to design new cancer treatments.

A new research, published in Nucleic Acid Research, shows the new version of the global database called canSAR, developed by researchers funded by the Cancer Research U.K. The database was initially aimed to create a detailed picture of how the majority of human molecules behave.

Researchers said the updated version of canSAR can help observe faulty cancer-causing molecules using artificial intelligence and determine communication lines that can be blocked within tumour cells. These would allow scientists to design new drugs and provide new approaches to fight cancer, according to Cancer Research U.K.

The database was launched in 2011 and has already been used to organise billions of experimental measurements showing the actions of one million drugs and chemicals on human proteins. The new canSAR database now has 3D structures of nearly three million cavities on almost 110,000 molecules.

Cancer Research U.K. said researchers around the world can explore the database for free.

"Our database is constantly growing with information and is the largest of its kind - with more than 140,000 users from over 175 countries,” said Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani, who led the team that developed canSAR. “And we regularly develop new artificial intelligence technologies that help scientists make predictions and design experiments.”

Al-Lazikani added that the team aims to provide all cancer scientists the data they need for their life-saving research. Information from the database could help scientists determine if a new drug might work using a faulty gene or protein.

"The canSAR database is an important part of the overall drive to use Big Data approaches to understand and treat cancer more effectively,” said Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and a Cancer Research UK Life Fellow. “canSAR is a massively powerful resource that's used globally by researchers to gain rapid and easy to use access to a huge wealth of integrated knowledge in biology, chemistry and cancer medicine.”

Scientists all over the world can now speed up crucial advances in drug discovery using the database, which could significantly save more lives, said Dr Kat Arney, science information manager of Cancer Research U.K. “Finding new treatments for cancer can be a long and expensive process, so anything that cuts times and costs will help to bring the next generation of therapies to patients even sooner."

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