Scientists devise new molecules that could ‘fuel revolution in cancer treatment’

Researchers have created a new molecule that they say could revolutionise cancer therapy.

The innovative approach, published in the scientific journal Nature, harnesses the power of a new class of molecules called TCIPs.

Gerald Crabtree, a developmental biologist at Stanford University and lead author of the study, said the research could “possibly fuel a revolution in cancer treatment.”

When an individual or organism has cancer, certain genes, known as cancer drivers, undergo mutations that make them continuously send signals promoting uncontrolled cell proliferation and tumour growth.

Historically, cancer treatments have focused on inhibiting these cancer drivers or targeting their signalling pathways to stop uncontrolled growth.

However, the newly devised TCIPs (short for transcriptional/epigenetic chemical inducers of proximity) are molecules that take a different approach.

Instead of trying to stop the signals from cancer drivers, TCIPs can rewire the cancer-driving genes to self-destruct.

For the own good of the organism, we all have within us, in every cell, means for self-destruction, Crabtree explains.

“Cells can make a decision to disappear, to commit a kind of altruistic suicide in which the cells are eliminated because it's gone rogue for one reason or another,” he says.

“A cell could, for example, self-destruct as a precaution because it has mutations in immune function that make it attack your own cells. And these kinds of cells are eliminated by a very, very powerful mechanism.”

Crabtree says that it occurred to him that they could take the cancer drivers and rewire them to activate cell death.

“So we've invented a group of molecules that do that, they cause the cancer driver to now engage the cell death pathway.”

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