Cancer researchers ID new drug target

Researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston have identified a protein that appears to play a key role in about 15 percent of all cancers, offering a new drug target that could be particularly effective for hard-to-treat patients.

George Daley, Srinivas Viswanathan and Richard Gregory say that the protein LIN28 pushes a cell to a cancerous state and appears abundant in advanced cancers like liver cancer, ovarian cancer and acute myeloid leukemia, according to a report in The Medical News. A drug that inhibits LIN28 could have wide application, they believe.

"Linking this protein to advanced cancer is a very exciting new result," says Daley, Director of Stem Cell Transplantation at Children's. "It gives us a new target to attack, especially in the most resistant and hard-to-treat cases. LIN28 is a fascinating protein that acts both in stem cells and cancers, and is teaching us that cancer is often a disease of stem cells."

- read the report from The Medical News