Turning off cancer’s growth signals
One hallmark of cancer cells is uncontrollable growth, provoked by inappropriate signals that instruct the cells to keep dividing. Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have now identified a new way to shut off one of the proteins that spreads those signals — a receptor known as HER3.Drugs that interfere with HER3’s better-known cousins, EGFR and HER2, have already proven effective in treating many types of cancer, and early-stage clinical trials are underway with antibodies directed against HER3. HER3 is of great interest to cancer biologists because it is commonly involved in two of the deadliest forms of the disease, ovarian and pancreatic cancer, says MIT Professor Linda Griffith, who led the research team with Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Brigham and Women’s cardiologist Richard Lee.The study, published online May 26 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, resulted from a serendipitous finding in a regenerative-medicine project. Co-first author...
