“Killing these cancer stem cells is the holy grail of cancer treatments and therefore holds promise for complete eradication of cancer,” says Dr. Sarit Larisch of the University of Haifa.
These are not words pronounced lightly; instead, they follow more than a decade of research that could give hope to cancer patients worldwide. Along with her colleagues, Larisch has established the basis for developing a new, more effective treatment for cancer using a protein called ARTS.
The protein regulates the process of programmed cell death which occurs when a cell is damaged, mutated or no longer functional. This protein acts as a trigger for cell death, its presence allowing for enzymes called caspases to destroy the non-functional cell. An Israeli scientists has discovered that this process is missing in cancer cells, which means this new treatment could be the key that has alluded scientists for decades to finding a cure for cancer.
Read the full, original story here: Israeli Discovers Cell-Destroying Protein that Could End Cancer
Additional Resources:
- “Has an Israeli research team found the key to curing cancer in humans?” Genetic Literacy Project
- “Stem Cells Reprogrammed Using Chemicals Alone,” Nature
- “Scicurious Guest Writer! Beyond the code: addressing complexity in cancer genetics,” Scientific American
