- The Observer, Sunday February 18 2001
The Cancer Research Campaign hopes the breakthrough will help it to develop a 'chemical lullaby' to stop cancer cells dividing and lure them into an 'everlasting sleep'.
The findings on why cancers don't stop growing will be published in the science magazine Nature this week. Healthy cells normally fall into a permanent sleep or 'senescence' after dividing a certain number of times. In contrast, cancer cells continue to grow and spread. Researchers have pinpointed molecules that act as 'tumour suppressors', telling the cells to stop dividing.
Dr Naoko Ohtani, who is heading the research at the Paterson Institute in Manchester, has now unravelled how these molecules send cells to sleep. She said: 'We know there is a group of molecules that induce senescence, and we believe that in the future we may be able to mimic this to produce a completely new cancer treatment.'
Current cancer treatments involve very harsh techniques with severe side-effects. However, the new research opens up the prospect of a far more effective treatment that simply sends the cancers to sleep.
Dr Leslie Walker, head of science information at the Cancer Research Campaign, said: 'We hope this work will lead to a nice, clean, targeted anti-cancer pill that you can simply pop in your mouth at home.'
Doctors would only need to identifythe cancer and then prescribe the appropriate pill. Researcher Eiji Hara said: 'It will be five or six more years before we develop a drug.'
Scientists discovered about 40 years ago that healthy cells have a limit to how many times they divide before succumbing to senescence. However, it is now known that there are at least around 20 different 'tumour suppressor' genes which, if faulty, can lead to cells dividing forever, forming a tumour.
The researchers at Manchester have unlocked the biological mechanisms of how this happens, opening the way to designing a drug to stop it.
Professor Gordon McVie, director-general of the Cancer Research Campaign, said: 'Cancer cells' continual activity - their refusal to go to sleep - is one of the key problems facing cancer doctors today. This research could lead to a brand-new way of treating cancer.'
