Cancer Cure Found in Protein, Study Finds

There is no cure for cancer yet, but we're getting there.

According to Science World Report, a team of researchers made breakthrough in research when they doscovered a protein that has been present and over-produced in almost every cancer cell, and glaringly absent in normal cells.

The protein, called the PARP 14, allows cancer cells to use glucose as fuel that allows uncontrollable cancer cell growth. Too much of this can effect to kinases, proteins that are known to control the cell death cycle.

The lead academic researcher, Dr. Concetta Bubici from Brunei University London said about the findings, "What we have discovered is that its role in cancer is to allow cells to harness glucose in a different way from healthy ones, which in turn powers their rapid, uncontrolled growth while also protecting them from the normal cycle of programmed cell death."

"What we have discovered is that its role in cancer is to allow cells to harness glucose in a different way from healthy ones which in turn powers their rapid, uncontrolled growth while also protecting them from the normal cycle of programmed cell death," she continued.

"Almost all cells in the human body have a strictly limited life. In stimulating over-production of PARP 14, cancer cells effectively are not only turbo-charged through being able to use glucose to grow and divide which takes a lot of energy but also become immune from the natural checks and balances of the cell death cycle known as apoptosis," Dr. Bubici explained.

Their findings are a step nearer to finally stopping the disease from becoming a fatal one. "We discovered that too much PARP 14 effects other proteins in the body called kinases that control apoptosis. So if we can find a way of stopping this over production of PARP 14 we can cure cancer," Dr Salvatore Papa from the Institute of Hepatology London added.

The control and inhibition of proteins and enzymes in the body is not a new development in medicine: in fact, it has already been widely used for a vast array of conditions such as stomach ulcers and depression, and even in the prevention of breast cancer.

However, this does not mean that the cure for cancer can be developed in a year or so: according to the team, more research is needed to be done before doctors can prescribe drugs to inhibit the PARP 14. However, should new therapies be developed, cancer could be more vulnerable to existing chemotherapies, which, at this point is still expected to be used.