Van Andel Institute and Novartis discover new method of eradicating cancer cells

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Who knew that enzyme PI3K-C2alpha is needed in order for certain cancer cells to live and thrive? Nobody. Until recently.

By lowering levels of PI3K-C2alpha, a phosphoinositide 3-kinase enzyme, researchers at Grand Rapids-based Van Andel Institute and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research discovered that pancreatic, prostate and lung cancer cells died. The procedure also kept cells from reproducing, and it sensitized cancer cells, making them more receptive to chemotherapy drugs like Taxol.

Researchers also determined how low the enzyme needed to be to “switch on” cancer cell death. The findings were published in Molecular Cancer Research.

“Although we must further determine what happens in normal cells to confirm the therapeutic value, we also found that decreasing levels of PI3K-C2alpha to a certain point didn’t kill the cancer cells, but did sensitize them to chemotherapeutic agents such as Taxol,” says VAI Scientific Investigator Jeff MacKeigan, Ph.D. “This alone could contribute to a more effective anti-cancer strategy in a subset of cancers.”

Source: Van Andel Institute

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.