Biotech

What’s the connection between them, anyway? Is there any?

Let’s see,  Canadian researchers recently said that various proteins interact in tumors can help predict a woman’s chances of surviving breast cancer. It is allowing doctors to better tailor treatment too. Check this,

The researchers analyzed networks of proteins — chemical compounds vital in cellular processes — in breast cancer tissue from about 350 women in the United States and Europe.

They found that women who survived the disease had a different organization of the network of proteins within the cancer cells than those who died.

Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, they said tracking these protein interactions enabled them to accurately predict in 82 percent of patients whether their breast cancer would kill them or not.

The researchers observed 30,000 protein interactions involving about 8,000 proteins, then identified a core group of about 250 proteins most important in forecasting patient survival. Many of them regulate the actions of other proteins.

If a newly diagnosed patient has protein interactions that suggest a bad outcome, a doctor could give more aggressive treatment through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

Jeff Wrana of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, who led the study, approached cancer as a problem in how proteins communicate with each other — or how proteins interact with each other in networks. This way could help to direct  the appropriate therapies for each patients.

We hope this new tool would work to reduce death level among women worldwide. Until now, statistic counts about 465,000 dying annually among them. Source: Reuters.

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