Photo: Warren Umoh | Unsplash
Researchers from Princeton University successfully found the compound that can disable the gene that causes cancer cells to metastasize and spread throughout the body. Fifteen years of research has gone into metadherin, or MTDH, the gene that produces an abnormally high level of proteins and allows cancers to flourish and grow. The “silver bullet” now discovered by the scientists can effectively de-activate the function of the gene, even after the tumor has grown into a fully developed, life-threatening cancer. Scientists hope to be ready for clinical trials on human patients in two to three years. “Even though metastatic cancers are scary, by figuring out how they work – figuring out their dependency on certain key pathways like MTDH – we can attack them and make them susceptible to treatment,” says cancer biologist Yibin Kang.
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