New possible target for cancer treatment
[PRESS RELEASE 2017-06-06] Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report that cancer cells and normal cells use different ‘gene switches’ in order to regulate the expression of genes that control growth. In mice, the removal of a large regulatory region linked to different types of cancer caused a dramatic resistance to tumour formation, but did not affect normal cell growth. The findings, published in the scientific journal eLife, highlight the possibility of developing highly specific cancer drugs with fewer side effects.Humans have close to 20,000 genes to carry out all the