New hope for skin cancer victims

An encouraging discovery has been made in the fight against the most dangerous form of skin cancer, scientists reveal.

A team from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow said it has proved that a specific gene, P-Rex1, must be present before malignant melanoma can spread in a patient.

Using a grant from the Association for International Cancer Research, Owen Sansom, professor, and his team at the Beatson Institute conducted a study using mice models which mirror the common human genetics of melanoma.

They found that if P-Rex1 was absent from the cells, the melanoma tumours were unable to spread.

Further investigation en-abled them to decipher the exact mechanism that P-Rex1 uses to spread and which is blocked when the gene is removed.

They then confirmed that human melanoma samples, taken from patients’ tumours, contained raised levels of P-Rex1.

Prof Sansom said: “As malignant melanoma is resistant to many forms of chemotherapy, these findings are encouraging.”