Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, claims between 9,000-10,000 American lives annually. And a primary reason it does is that, like in the pancreas, its cancer cells swiftly coalesce into tumors. Another important reason: like pancreatic cancer, early diagnosis often eludes its victims, of which there are many thousand in the U.S. each year.
However, we might soon see progress in defending against both of these killers.
That’s because new findings from researchers at the University of Iowa have identified two antibodies that, in their words, “blocked tumor creation” in melanoma and breast cancer.
Their recent study of melanoma’s fast-moving formation, published in April in the journal PLOS One, found that “anti-beta 1 integrin/(CD29) and anti-CD44″ were effective in walling off both melanoma and breast cancer, which Iowa researchers studied in 2015.
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“What’s so cool is the same drug that stops breast cancer cells from undergoing coalescence also stops melanoma cells from undergoing coalescence,” said biology professor David Soll. “That means there’s a commonality despite the different origins. And that also means there might be a magic bullet (to stop tumor formation) for all cancers.”
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: 2 Skin Cancer ‘Blockers’ Identified, Researchers Report
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