Scientists find potential way to stop cancers seed in brain
June 10th, 2009 - 3:17 pm ICT by ANI ( Leave a comment )London, June 10 (ANI): British scientists may have found a way to stop cancers spreading to the brain.
The research team discovered that cancer cells hijack the brain’s blood vessels to get all the nourishment they need to seed themselves there.
Boffins believe that the key to this is a protein on the surface of cancer cells called integrin that allows them to stick to the vessels, PLoS ONE journal reports.
Researchers at Oxford University, with funding from Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health, wanted to investigate exactly how cancers spread.
After analyses, Dr Shawn Carbonell and his team found that the metastatic cancer cells start to grow on the walls of blood vessels in the brain in over 95 percent of cases, and not on the nerve cells.
“We have identified the protein that cancer cells use to anchor themselves to blood vessels in the brain. Now we can try to come up with drugs to target this protein and stop metastatic cancer cells from taking hold in the brain,” The BBC quoted Carbonell, as saying. (ANI)
- Mechanism behind organ transplant rejection uncovered - Nov 19, 2010
- New discovery may help inhibit cancer spread - Jan 15, 2010
- Molecule able to fight brain cancer found - Apr 22, 2011
- Drug for rare childhood cancer may help prevent prostate cancer spread - Apr 30, 2011
- Melanoma spreads to lungs using body's immune system - Oct 08, 2010
- Genetic change helps lung tumors spread to other parts of the body - Apr 07, 2011
- Blood protein in lung cancer may help improve diagnosis, treatment - Mar 03, 2011
- How the brain learns from mistakes - Feb 09, 2011
- Toxin that plays key role in triggering Parkinson's disease identified - Feb 11, 2011
- Molecules that help propel cancer metastasis identified - Apr 08, 2011
- DNA damage can help protect the body from infection - Apr 01, 2011
- Possible biomarker and therapeutic target for melanoma identified - Mar 18, 2011
- Tumours capable of making their own blood vessels: Study - Nov 22, 2010
- 'On-off' switch for key 'factor' in heart disease, cancer identified - Apr 07, 2011
- New biomarkers for predicting colon cancer spread identified - Jan 14, 2010
Tags: bbc, blood vessels in the brain, british scientists, cancer cells, cancer research uk, cancers, carbonell, drugs, institutes of health, integrin, london, medical research council, metastatic cancer, national institutes of health, nerve cells, nourishment, oxford university, protein
