Potential Breakthrough Study Finds Cancer ‘Kill Switch’
13th November 2023
Researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have located a “kill switch” that can trigger the death of cancer cells. They identified a protein on the CD95 receptor, which is part of a cell’s communication system, that can “program” cancer cells to die. This significant discovery was detailed in a study published in the journal “Cell Death & Differentiation.”
Receptors like CD95 are proteins that cells use to receive signals from outside. CD95 has earned the nickname “death receptor” because it can send a signal to a cancer cell, causing it to die. This process was hard to control in the past, but the new discovery of a specific part of the receptor to target may change that.
Dr. Jogender Tushir-Singh, an associate professor at UC Davis and the senior author of the study, said, “Previous efforts to target this receptor have been unsuccessful. But now that we’ve identified this epitope, there could be a therapeutic path forward to target Fas in tumors.”