DeCure's autonomous Cancer AI scientist is researching a drug-repurposing hypothesis for tonsil cancer — screening already-approved drugs against its 1-gene Open Targets disease module to publish open-access research. Research is fast; the path to publication is funded in milestone stages.
Disease moduleTonsil cancer maps to a 1-gene Open Targets module — the target space DeCure's AI scientist screens approved drugs against.
DeCure.ai methodSignature reversal (LINCS) plus network proximity (STRING) rank already-approved drugs likely to perturb this module — the same engine that produces DeCure.ai's repurposing hypotheses.
Repurposing thesisScreening approved medicines against this disease module, then publishing the evidence for the strongest candidate. Known pharmacology and human exposure data make the first question sharper — they do not establish safety or efficacy in a new indication.
Research record
01
ResearchComing soon
Candidate research + dossier — target rationale, drug-repurposing thesis and evidence pack.proof: Published dossier + on-chain hash
02
ValidationComing soon
In-vitro biological validation at a contract research org (CRO).proof: CRO contract + in-vitro report
03
Peer review & paperComing soon
Peer-reviewed paper published open-access (preprint + journal).proof: DOI + open-access link + on-chain hash
Current lead
No approved-drug candidate for tonsil cancer is corroborated in the literature DeepSearch retrieved. Some conditions are managed with non-pharmacological care — a device, surgery or physical therapy — rather than a medicine; that may be the case here, or the literature we found may simply be too sparse yet to support a drug-repurposing angle.
Molecular view
tumor protein p53 (TP53) — TP53 is one of the genes genetically linked to this disease in Open Targets — shown as context, not as a drug target we're pursuing: no approved-drug candidate for this disease is yet corroborated in the literature we found.
Loading structure…
helix sheet apo structuredrag to rotate · scroll to zoom
RCSB Protein Data Bank · entry 9R2Q · 3.2 Å · ligand none (apo structure). Experimental structure, not a prediction.
Evidence
Retrieved by DeepSearch across 234,678,978 indexed works and resolved on OpenAlex — ranked by citations, including the results that did not work.
Head & Neck · 2000 · 52 citations
Primary surgery as treatment for early squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil
AbstractBACKGROUND: The management of tonsil carcinoma has gradually evolved such that the literature is replete with outcome summaries of this disease treated with primary RT and chemotherapy. Recently there have been no reports of patient outcomes with primary surgical therapy. Nonsurgical treatment is warranted when tumors are unresectable or if the patient refuses surgery. Our policy has been to treat operable squamous cell carcinoma (SCCA) of the tonsil with surgery. The decision to use adjuvant therapy is based on the surgical and histologic findings. We herein report our results with this treatment protocol. METHODS: A retrospective review of 162 patients with SCCA of the tonsil was performed. Eighty-four patients were treated with surgery, which was followed by RT and/or chemotherapy if histologic signs of aggressive behavior were identified. Patients were followed 2 to 15 years after treatment. RESULTS: Of the 9 patients with stage I disease, 89% are without evidence of recurrent disease and 91% of patients with stage II tonsil cancers are also disease free. The survival rates for stage III and stage IV cancer patients are 79 and 52%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that patients with early tonsil cancer can be effectively treated with surgery. Surgery allows pathologic staging so that patients with advanced tumors can be treated with adjuvant therapy.
Prophylactic contralateral neck dissection has no advantage in patients with early stage HPV-positive tonsil cancer
AbstractBackground Patients with locally advanced HPV-positive tonsil cancer would benefit from prophylactic contralateral neck dissection (pCND).Aims/Objectives The aim of this study was to analyze rates of contralateral lymph node metastases (LNM) and their prognostic effects on locally advanced HPV-positive tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma.Materials and methods Medical records of 54 patients who underwent upfront primary surgery and pCND were retrospectively reviewed.Results Six (11.1%) patients had contralateral LNM in 54 locally advanced HPV-positive tonsil cancer. Of these, five patients had contralateral level II LNM and one patient had contralateral level II and III LNM. Contralateral LNM showed significant positive correlations with advanced T stage (p = .017) and the presence of extracapsular spread (p = .007). Contralateral lymph node metastasis had no significant association with five-year disease-specific survival.Conclusions and significance This study demonstrated no advantage in performing pCND in early stage HPV-positive tonsil cancer.
Disease module: DeepOracle (Open Targets). Structures: RDKit from PubChem SMILES. Literature: retrieved by DeepSearch across 234,678,978 indexed works (targeted per-candidate search), resolved on OpenAlex.
DeCure is a research and publication project, not medical advice and not a treatment. "DeCure for X" describes a research goal, not a claim that a cure exists. Backing a cure is a contribution to fund the research — it is not an investment, and confers no yield, royalty, equity or IP ownership. Papers are published open-access by the DeCure.ai DAO.
