Maltese scientist's significant breakthrough in cancer battle

The achievements of Maltese scientist Lucy Cassar were given prominence in a recent issue of the major newspaper in Melbourne, The Age. Cassar's discovery was described as ‘a potentially significant breakthrough in the fight against cancer'.

Cassar has just completed her Ph.D. at Monash University, working at the Alfred Hospital campus. Her work could very well have a truly significant effect on the study of how tumours grow, and possibly show the way to combat this condition.

It has been known for some time that the capacity of cells to divide and multiply is dependent on the presence of genes at each end of the chromosomes. These are called ‘telomeres'. In normal cells, the number of telomeres become progressively less with each cell division, and eventually the cell stops dividing and actually dies and disappears (a process called ‘apoptosis').

On the other hand cancer cells seem to have a never-ending amount of telomerase, which means that they can continue to divide and grow indefinitely.

Any mechanism which can be devised to interfere with this ability could prove to be a very useful way of controlling cancer growth. Cassar discovered a substance known as BMP7 (Bone Morphogenetic Protein-7) which could suppress the activity of telomerase, and therefore expected to have an effect on cell populations, including inhibition of cell proliferation and eventual promotion of cell destruction.

In fact, she demonstrated that when she added this substance to a cell culture, there was demonstrable reduction in telomerase activity within 24 hours with resulting cell destruction.

The next step was to see if this treatment was effective on animals. The drug also worked with mice, resulting in a reduction in the number of cancer cells.

Cassar's work is being published in a prominent American journal.

It is a long way from mouse to man, but Cassar is young and enthusiastic, and we will be hearing more about her efforts in controlling cancer growth, particularly the eventual application of these findings to combat tumours in humans.

Article published in The Sunday Times, March 29, 2009