Researchers Vying to 'Murder Cancer' Through Actual Oxygen Deprivation?

Can cancer be choked to death? A team of American researchers has asked themselves the exact same question and are now trying to develop a technique to literally 'murder cancer'!

Dr. Ze'ev Ronai, who is leading the research project at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, has found that tumors deprived of oxygen activate a transcription factor called HIF-1a, which help them compensate and survive.

The researcher says that inhibiting HIF-1a can cause tumors to experience oxygen deprivation due to insufficient blood flow.

Dr. Ronai's laboratory has already shown proof of this concept by inhibiting PHD3, a regulator of HIF-1a.

He says that binding of short protein fragments to PHD3 results in HIF-1a degradation, and halts growth of metastatic tumors in mice.

He and his colleagues are presently trying to determine how small molecule compounds might accomplish the same task.

Source: ANI
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