While studying the same issues without each other's knowledge, research groups from Stanford and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have come up with similar results. Both have discovered two new protein types, which can drastically increase the possibility of success for chemotherapy on cancer-infected patients. Consequently, doctors may soon be able to tell if a treatment option is the right one only two or three days after chemo begins, as opposed to the 2 or 3 months required today.

 

Both proteins have similar ways of acting, by “illuminating” the path to the cancerous cells via light-emitting markers they are combined with. As a result, patients may no longer have to undergo expensive and potentially harmful procedures like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

 

Instead, doctors could simply “follow the light” coming from these proteins and aim other cancer-killing proteins at the tumors. Currently, the same method is employed, the only difference being that injected proteins have a very small success rate when the tumor is small. Also, after inhibiting a cell from producing a certain type of protein, usually one that cancerous cells bind with to feed on, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to "restart" production of that protein in the cell.

 

New treatment options may pave the way for a localized, more effective treatment for some types of cancer. So far, scientists have only experimented on mice, with a viable prototype for human testing still some time away. However, they did report promising results, as they have been able to observe almost immediate effects on mice, as far as detecting the invading cells go.

 

Furthermore, Stanford scientists, led by Chris Contag, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics, of radiology, microbiology and immunology, have managed to develop a method by which protein decomposition speed is increased or decreased according to the needs of the case. This means that, instead of having to shut down protein production in the cells, doctors should be able to accelerate decay, prevent new cancerous cells from emerging, and then restore production to full capacity.