Researchers Discover New Way To Make Cancer Cells Self-Destruct
By Joel Lindsey
Researchers at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the University of Adelaide’s Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine have observed new behaviors in cancer that they say could revolutionize the way the medical world approaches leukemia treatment.
“This discovery is paradigm shifting,” Deborah White, director of cancer research at SAHMRI and professor at the University of Adelaide, said in a press release. “Our findings are not just applicable to chronic myeloid leukemia therapy, but to all targeted cancer treatments.”
The group’s major breakthrough was determining that cancer cells decide whether to live or die in response to a short period of ultra-intense and targeted therapy. The discovery flies in the face of traditional thinking about cancer treatment, which maintains that the best way to treat cancer is by administering continuous treatment over a longer period of time.
“With this treatment, during a short exposure to therapy, the cancer cells say ‘this is all too hard, we are just going to die’,” White told the Australian Times.
As a direct consequence of this basic discovery, researchers were able to devise a new mode of targeted treatment aimed at catalyzing the self-destruction of cancer cells rather than the external management or eradication of them. White and the other researchers involved with the project found that by inhibiting a common protein known as STAT5, they could effectively encourage the “suicide” of dangerous cancer cells associated with leukemia.
“The activity of STAT5 appears to be a critical determinant of the decision for cancer cells to live or die,” said Lisa Schafranek, a member of White’s research team. “Our research has found that by blocking STAT5 in conjunction with exposure to a regular anti-cancer treatment, we were able to more effectively target the leukemia cells. We now also better understand the timing required for the combined treatment to be effective.”
The group’s findings were published in the journal Leukemia.