It looks like there is a spanking new development where the realm of pancreatic cancer research is concerned, as scientists involved in this particular field have discovered a technique which is capable of checking out the presence of cancerous cells, and perform a miracle, to say the least, as it transforms those cancerous cells back into normal healthy cells. This particular method will be based on the introduction of a protein known as E47, where it will bond with select DNA sequences as well as revert those cells back to their original state.
This particular study was a collaboration between researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, University of California San Diego and Purdue University, and this very group of scientists do have high hopes that this particular development might play a positive role in the fight against pancreatic cancer.
Pamela Itkin-Ansari, adjunct professor at Sanford-Burnham and lead author of the study, shared, “For the first time, we have shown that over-expression of a single gene can reduce the tumor-promoting potential of pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and reprogram them toward their original cell type. Thus, pancreatic cancer cells retain a genetic memory which we hope to exploit.”
The next step involved would be to test primary patient-derived tumor tissue in order to determine whether E47 is capable of producing similar results, which might open the door to offer a novel therapeutic approach so that it can combat this extremely lethal disease. [Press Release]
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