New method to fight melanoma possibly uncovered.
While skin cancer may seem like the easiest cancer to treat being that it's on the outside the body. But it is not always as simple as removing it safely.
The reality is that treatment typically still requires chemotherapy, which we all know comes with some extreme side effects. A research team from Boston University School of Medicine has identified a gene, that when disrupted with a drug compound, can prevent melanoma from developing.
Long term exposure to ultraviolet light, typically from sunlight is the main cause of melanoma. The light damages the DNA in skin cells and can disrupt gene expression in ways that allow tumors to grow.
"There are immunotherapies and targeted therapies that have shown huge improvements for patients with melanoma," says Rutao Cui, lead researcher on the study. "However, for patients with NRAS mutations, they don't have very useful or very effective treatment strategies." (Irving, 2019)
It had been unknown which protein would activate NRAS, but after testing researchers identified STK19 and the most likely candidate. The team discovered that STK19 activates NRAS and also found that it can be disabled and that reduction of avtivation of NRAS may prevent melanoma from taking hold.
Not only did the team discover that STK19 activates NRAS, they also found that it can be disabled. The researchers developed a drug compound that does just that, and tested it in animals and lab-grown skin cell cultures. Sure enough, in both scenarios the drug reduced activation of NRAS and prevented melanoma from taking hold.
The researchers say the next steps are to test out the compound in humans, with the eventual goal of getting it ready for clinical trials.
What can you do for protection? Take Xymogen's CoQMax Ubiquinol daily for the best protection against Melanoma. CoQ10 Ubiquinol has been shown to prevent malignant melanoma, squamous and basal cell carcinoma.
Irving, M. (2019, February 04). Deactivating a trigger protein could stop melanoma in its tracks. Retrieved from https://newatlas.com/melanoma-deactivate-gene-treatment/58307/