New Drug Target Found for Lung Cancer The scientists discovered that blocking the activity of the enzyme IKK2, which helps activate the body's inflammation response, slowed the growth of tumors in mice with lung cancer and increased their lifespan. The findings, reported February 12 in Nature Cell Biology , suggest that drugs that hinder the ability of the enzyme to command cellular activity might prove effective as lung cancer therapies. "Lung cancer is one of most lethal cancers and prognosis for patients is often poor, with only about 15 percent surviving more than 5 years," says Inder Verma, Salk's American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology and lead author of the paper. "We developed a new method of initiating lung cancer in mice, which has properties associated with human lung cancer, and used this model to identify the role of this enzyme in cancer proliferation. We believe that this research could one day lead to therapies that
Projeto em Ciências Biomédicas da Universidade da Beira Interior - Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde - Covilhã|Portugal