CRISPR Used to ‘Reprogram’ Cancer Cells Into Healthy Muscle in the Lab
11th September 2023
Scientists have transformed cancer cells into healthy muscle tissue in the lab using CRISPR gene-editing technology — and they hope new cancer treatments can be built on the back of this experiment.
In a study published Aug. 28 in the journal PNAS, researchers found that disabling a particular protein complex in cells of rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) — a rare cancer in skeletal muscle tissue that mainly affects children under age 10 — in the laboratory causes the tumor cells to turn into healthy muscle cells.
Although the research is still in its early days, this process of “resetting” cancer cells into healthy cells, broadly known as differentiation therapy, has already been tested in other types of cancer, such as bone and blood cancer. Four drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the latter disease and generally work by inhibiting a specific protein in the cancer cells.