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CANCER: Multi-talented molecules help fight cause

Cancer cells grow faster than the cells around them, but what makes them life-threatening is their ability to get into the bloodstream and spread throughout the body. Once these runaway cells have colonised other organs the hopes for successful surgery or radiotherapy are greatly reduced, posing a formidable challenge to oncologists.

Researchers in the US have developed a new class of drugs that stop tumours from spreading. This work comes from the laboratory of Renata Pasqualini, one of the most promising young fighters in the war on cancer. She is determined to design better strategies to stop cancer cells in their tracks. Her latest results, published this month in the journal Nature Biotechnology, show that she is making impressive progress.

Cancer cells move by chewing their way through the surrounding tissues. Researchers believe that if they can stop the chewing they will effectively immobilise the tumour cells. Dr Pasqualini's group at the Burnham Institute in California teamed up with Erkki Koivunen and colleagues at the University of Helsinki, to design small peptide molecules (just 10 amino acids long) which can specifically block the tissue-chewing enzymes secreted by cancer cells.

The whole team worked very hard, says Dr Pasqualini. These experiments take a long time if you want to do them right.


The researchers came up with several circular molecules that stop the enzymes from chewing and prevent migration of tumour cells. These drugs inhibited tumour growth in mice implanted with human breast cancer cells.

The molecules turn out to be multi-talented. They can also prevent the formation of new blood vessels which bring essential nutrients to the tumour. So not only are the cancer cells unable to move any more, they are effectively starved to death.

The article is accompanied by an editorial by Judah Folkman from Harvard Medical School in Boston. While Dr Pasqualini is one of the youngest stars in cancer research, Dr Folkman is a respected grandfather in the field. He says Dr Pasqualini's latest results pack a powerful punch in the fight against cancer.

Dr Folkman points out that cyclic molecules of this type could have numerous applications, including directing anti-cancer drugs to the brain.

The next steps will be to make the molecules more stable, so that they survive longer in the bloodstream, and then to test them in human patients. The molecules are more active and specific than anything else available, says Dr Pasqualini.

While her cancer cells are left stuck in their tracks, Dr Pasqualini never stops moving. Since leaving her native Brazil, she has worked in Boston and California and is now on the road again. She is soon to move to the MD Anderson Center in Houston, Texas, where she will be looking for more innovative drugs to target tumours.