An Urgent and Bold Therapeutic Intervention is Needed
Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world and 4th most common in Asia. It is the second deadliest cancer around the globe, taking more than 746,000 lives in 2012. In Asia, it is also the second deadliest cancer taking 558,000 lives that year. The ratio of mortality to incidence is 0.93 which literally means that almost no patient will survive.
An Urgent and Bold Therapeutic Intervention is Needed
THE CHALLENGE
—Standard Treatment Only Provides Modest Benefits to Liver Cancer Patients
Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world and 4th most common in Asia. It is the second deadliest cancer around the globe, taking more than 746,000 lives in 2012. In Asia, it is also the second deadliest cancer taking 558,000 lives that year. The ratio of mortality to incidence is 0.93 which literally means that almost no patient will survive.
Hepatocellular Cancer (HCC) is the most common form of primary liver cancer, and is responsible for 80% of primary malignant liver tumors in adults. Only when HCC is caught early and the tumor is small, surgery can cure the disease. However, this only occurs in 15% of patients.
Effective treatments are still lacking for HCC and the 5 year overall survival remains poor at 18%. Current HCC therapeutic options of surgery, liver transplantation, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy give only modest patient benefit. The approved therapeutics that target the blood vessels in HCC have shown variable outcomes.
It is time to identify innovative strategies that specifically target HCC to save patients’ lives.
THE ANSWER
—Targeting the Epigenetic Changes in HCC: Opening a New Path in Cancer Therapy
Epigenetic changes in cancer are emerging as an important contributor to the development of multiple cancers, including HCC. While mutations in DNA sequence may create abnormal proteins that lead to cancer, epigenetic changes alter the activities and abilities of a cell without directly affecting and mutating the sequence of DNA.
Key epigenetic changes in cancer include when a cell adds small molecular additions to a gene that can turn its expression on or off. Or molecular additions to histones—proteins that alter the packaging of genes, allowing other proteins to regulate the expression and activities of the gene.
Abnormal epigenetic changes most likely occur at an early stage of tumor development and are reversible, offering a unique possibility to alter gene function and the formation of cancer.
AFCR is now funding epigenetic research pioneer, Daniel Tenen, Ph.D., Director of the Cancer Science Institute in Singapore (CSI) and Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore.
Using Aptamers to Revert Abnormal Epigenetic Modifications in HCC
Aptamers are short peptides (very small proteins) or nucleic acids (building blocks of DNA or RNA) that are selectively synthesized to bind to specific areas of disease-associated proteins. Due to their small size, this new class of molecules can bind with high affinity to areas of proteins usually inaccessible to larger molecules.
Dr. Tenen’s collaborators in Italy are world–renowned experts in using RNA aptamers as therapeutic tools. The research will identify the best small aptamers that will bind tightly to specific areas in SALL4 and DNTM1 proteins to revert their abnormal epigenetic actions that cause liver cancer development and progression.
Together this powerful team will bring complimentary expertise in epigenetic modification and aptamer technology to develop a bold therapeutic approach to treat liver cancer, providing patients with new hope.
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