Sweden's Karolinska Institute Develops Novel Anticancer Drug

Researchers have identified a novel anticancer drug that fights tumours by effectively making them poison themselves.

Researchers from the Swedish Karolinska Institute have identified a novel anticancer drug that fights tumours by effectively making them poison themselves.

The medicine targets the tendency of growing tumours to produce defective proteins. These are usually broken down by proteasomes, cell waste disposal units. But the new drug uses a molecule called b-AP15 to prevent these proteasomes from working, and hence the tumour cells, riddled with defective proteins, die via apoptosis.

Stig Linder, professor of experimental oncology at Karolinska’s department of oncology and pathology, said his colleagues could not yet treat patients with medicines using the molecule, but they hope that their continuing work will eventually lead to the development of new drugs.

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