An international team of researchers has published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identifying a protein overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells that could serve as a very valuable therapeutic target for anti-cancer treatments.
All their research was carried out in lab mice, but nonetheless indicates great promise in CD47-signal regulatory protein alpha, a protein that aides cancer cells by fighting off antibodies produced by the immune system to attack it.
Scientists therefore set about finding an antibody that could block the action of CD47 and therefore prevent its ability to protect the cancer cell. When they applied this antibody against seven types of cancers in mice, they experienced either tumor shrinkage and no signs of recurrence after several months, or if the tumor did not shrink they still saw no evidence of metastasis, even in aggressive subtypes.
The results are likely to cause an explosion of further exploratory research into an anti-CD47 directed therapeutic response, with possible human trials in the next couple of years.
Source: PNAS
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