Protein KO stops tumour growth

Science | Health - Jonathan Wood | 18 Apr 11. Research published last week in the journal PNAS may have identified a promising new target for developing drugs against one of the most common types of lung cancer. Oxford University researchers have helped a team at biotech company Genentech in South San Francisco look at the role of a protein called PAK1 in the growth of tumours. PAK1 is a protein involved in a biochemical cascade used by cells in the body to control things like cell growth, division, and survival. Other proteins in this pathway have been implicated in cancer - when these controls go wrong, they can lead to uncontrolled cancerous growth. Dr Adrian Jubb and colleagues at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford were able to develop a test to look at levels of PAK1 in lung tissue samples from a tissue bank in Oxford. They showed that PAK1 was found at higher levels in one type of lung cancer, specifically the squamous type of non-small-cell lung cancer.