Italian researchers make breast-cancer breakthrough
An Italian team has made a major breakthrough in breast-cancer research, discovering the protein that lies behind the spread of breast tumors, Italian media reported on Monday.

After years of research that started with genes in fruit flies, researchers in Naples, Sardinia and Milan have identified the protein, dubbed h-prune, and the gene that makes it.

The discovery of the gene and the mechanism by which the protein works has been described in an article published in the magazine Cancer Cell.

Practical applications are not far off, the authors say.

This may lead to the development of drugs that can stop the killer protein in its tracks.

The researchers say they have identified a drug that could muffle the activity of the h-prune gene, but they are already thinking of the next step.

The research program, funded by the Italian Association for Cancer Research AIRC, was carried out by a team led by Massimo Zollo of the Tigem cancer research laboratory in Naples.

Zollo worked with Giuseppe Palmieri of the National Research Center's Institute of Population Genetics in Alghero, Sardinia.

Christine,
What do you think this means to all of us? Do you think this might mean something in the near future? I know that new research comes out all the time and then you don't hear about it any more. I hope this is different!! Did you read this from an article we could read?

Michelle,
Cancer breakthrougs come out about once a month..but I am interested in the line that says there will be applications shortly or something to that effect.

I am just becoming a bit cynical, I guess.

I cut and pasted the entire article.

hugs
Christine

Christine's statement was:

"..but I am interested in the line that says there will be applications shortly or something to that effect."

That line also caught MY eye!
The problem with research is that every center has their people tied up with ongoing research on a number of paths and it will take some big company or someone in the oncology community with major interest and clout for this to take off quickly. (My opinion from what I know about research.) Also, the fact that cancer IS a business and some work is done almost in secret so that no one else can beat them to a patent if a treatment is found.
Wish there was a way to follow this more closely ...

Christine,
where did you cut and paste the article to? I couldn't find it?