The fact that it can signal the beginning of a new era in cancer therapy, South Korean Kaist researchers (Korea, advanced institute of science and technology), came up with a way to reprogram cancer cells into conventional, healthy cells using chemotherapy and rays. The opening, published recently at Advanced Science, left the world’s medical fraternity, stunned and resumed hope for patients whose cancer treatment includes grueling chemotherapy.
Turn Cancer cells Ok? Scientists say
Classical treatments for cancer usually have painful side effects and destruction of adjacent normal tissues. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are aimed at destroying cancer cells, but they are tough and can collect the body’s strength. The most revolutionary in this new technique is that it does not kill cancer cells; It re -moderates them.Using a computer system called Benein (Boolean Network Enturence), Kaist researchers were able to reflect the genetic colon cells and, in fact, “reprogram” them to act as ordinary cells.
Benein: a tool that works on AI, which reprogrammed cancer cells in normal cells
Benein functions by studying how genes communicate with each other in cancer cells. After she knows the network, she chooses the most influential genes that regulate the cell. In this situation, the researchers found that the silence of three specific genes – Myb, HDAC2 and Foxa2 was enough to return the cancer character.What is more surprising is that the technique worked both in animal models and in cells that grew in the laboratory. The cells of the colon, processed by this procedure, began to detect normal differentiation, and the tumors decreased significantly when they were tested in mice.
Chemotherapy and radiation
Real Signs of recovery: showed in laboratory tests
The research team observed not only changes in cell behavior, but also watched them to the molecular level. Cancer cells treated with HDACI began to expose markers characteristic of healthy intestinal cells including KRT20 and VDR, and shut off cancers such as MyC and WNT.Expressing genes converted cells, very reminiscent of the samples of healthy tissues included in the atlas of the cancer genome, which even more checks the results.
Can it become versatile Treatment of cancer ?
Although the advance is focused on rectal cancer, the potential is much higher than one disease. Because Benein is an approach to the AI and Gene network, in principle, it can be used against other crayfish. But researchers warn from excessive confidence and caution that an additional test is needed before attracting the technique into the human clinical trials.However, the thought of reprogramming cancer cells rather than kills them, provides brand new horizons for safer and more personalized treatment.
For what’s next Studies of cancer ?
The study has already posted a Caist team on the forefront of non -toxic cancer therapy. Experts believe that this approach can eventually reduce dependence on chemotherapy and radiation, especially in early stage cancer. If future clinical trials are successful, it can become one of the biggest shifts in oncology in decades.
