A potential therapy for Crab already lurks in our own genes . Chunks of ancient virus lie embedded in the human genome . Administer just one protein to Crab cell and these built - in viruses go hyperactive , eventually bolt down the cell .
The human genome is constellate with “ endogenous retroviruses , ” the remains of virus that infect humans ten-spot of thousand of years ago , and eventually integrated themselves into our DNA . But these virus can become active again , and a graduate student named Danny Leung at the University of British Columbia unwrap how to plough them into cancer - fighting machines . He and a team of researchers published their work yesterday in Nature .
A release about their study explain how the cancer attack works :
A protein name ESET is crucial to preclude the action of endogenous retroviruses in mouse embryonic fore cells . Distant relatives of such retroviruses are more active in the cells of testicular , titty and skin cancer in humans .
If ESET can be block , retrovirus would become dramatically more alive , thus either kill the cancer cells hosting them or swag them as mark for the immune system .
But would n’t draw a blank ESET cause retroviruses to flare up all over the physical structure , thus killing every cadre instead of just cancer cells ? patently not . A special characteristic of cancer cells is that they are very alike to radical cells , and ESET does its occupation best in uniform stem cells rather than normal , differentiated mobile phone . So the ESET treatment could flip on viruses in your malignant neoplastic disease cells , but forget your healthy cellular telephone alone .
viaNature
prototype of cancer cell dying by Annie Cavanagh , Wellcome Images
Cancermad medicineMedicineScience
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