A new drug treatment that can switch off a key gene involved in skin cancer has been developed and tested in a world-first trial on Sydney patients.

The first-ever human trials of the drug, called Dz13, have shown it not only shrank the basal-cell carcinoma (BCC) skin cancers, but seemed to encourage the body's own immune system to fight them as well.

In a study published in the Lancet medical journal on Tuesday, Levon Khachigian from the University of NSW showed that for the first time Dz13 appears to be both safe and effective in humans, and could potentially be used in a number of cancers and other conditions.

[Turning off the gene] sends the tumour into a death spiral, which then triggers the body's own natural inflammatory and immune system to go into battle and shrink the tumour, he said.

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An international research team that included scientists from institutions across NSW were involved with developing and trialling the drug, funded by the Cancer Institute NSW, the Cancer Council, and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Professor Khachigian said Dz13 was enormously promising because it targeted the "c-jun" gene we all have, which is overactive in skin cancers, as well as other conditions including macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.

It's a pivotal growth gene, or survival gene, he said.

Usually it stays relatively inactive, but when it is switched on it triggers the production of a protein that supports unhealthy cell growth.

We think it is a bit of a lynchpin protein, he said. We don't really know why it gets switched on, except in BCCs, where we know sunlight turns it on."

Link:
Skin cancer drug switches off gene

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