‘Pied piper’ the switch to turn off cancer?

Experts Find Key Cell Molecule

Melbourne: Scientists have discovered a “pied piper” molecule in blood cells, called LIAR, which they claim can allow growth signals into red blood cells — and if turned off, might slow certain cancers.
    A team in Australia has made the pioneering discovery which it says could offer a key in treating prostate, breast and colon cancers as well as leukemia, the findings of which are published in the journal Blood.
    The scientists from Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, have also identified the function of a known cellular enzyme, Lyn, as a switch that “turns on” blood cell development.
    According to them, the findings are a leap forward in the understanding of how blood cells develop and divide, which could offer them a key to turning off cancerous cell growth.
    “LIAR is like a key, which opens a pathway into the nucleus of a blood cell for a number of other molecules, allowing them to flow in — and these molecules are what signal the cell to develop and divide.
    “From here, if we could control Liar, the hope is that we could use it to switch off the growth of abnormal, or cancerous, cells. Because Liar is present in every blood cell, this knowledge could help treat a huge range of conditions and diseases, but where it has most potential is in cancers of the prostate, breast, colon and blood where activity of the enzyme Lyn is heightened,” team leader Evan Ingley said.
    The focus of the team’s investigations, Lyn, has now been identified as an enzyme which modifies proteins that triggers the cell to develop further. PTI
‘Daily aspirin in 40s cuts risk of cancer’
    People taking an aspirin a day in their forties can cut the chances of developing cancer later in life, according to researchers. Those who take the cheap painkiller for 10 years can reduce the risks of suffering from breast and bowel cancer, two of the most common forms of the disease. “Taking the drugs in middle age would maximise the benefits when patients were in their sixties, when many cancers develop,” Jack Cuzick, of Cancer Research UK, was quoted by Telegraph as saying. Experts believe that it works by blocking the effects of proteins in the body linked to inflammation and found in abundance in some types of cancer. AGENCIES