Indian Researcher from IIT Roorkee Develops Successful Cure For Bone Cancer In Children
Indian researcher Dr. Swati Srivastava, in collaboration with Professor Yosef Yarden and other colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel has found a new treatment to stop bone cancer in children.
Dr Swati Srivastava has completed her PhD from IIT Roorkee and is currently doing her post-doctoral at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Reported by Cell Reports, she has discovered interactions of Ewing sarcoma on a molecular level and proposed a treatment which prevents it from spreading after it showed a positive response in a study with mice.
Ewing sarcoma is a form of bone cancer that is found in adolescents and young adults where a tumour is formed in bone or soft tissue.
They conducted research with special attention to the receptors for steroid hormones dubbed 'glucocorticoids'. Their tests revealed the hypothesis that these receptors considerably increase the growth of Ewing sarcoma.
The physical connection between glucocorticoid receptors and the protein made by Ewing sarcoma oncogene spiked the growth and migration of Ewing sarcoma cells in a laboratory dish and gave an even powerful boost to the growing and spreading of the sarcoma in laboratory mice.
Later, the researchers implanted Ewing sarcoma cells in mice and gave them medication that could block the synthesis of glucocorticoids. The researchers discovered that with the medication, the tumours started growing at a slower rate than before, thanks to the medication, thus not becoming as strong as they would have.
The researchers plan on testing this out on human patients soon. If the results are positive, it could offer new hope to young ones who are affected by this, especially in situations where cancer has metastasized beyond the bone.
Dr Srivastava said in a statement, "Our findings provide the basis for a personalized approach to the treatment of Ewing sarcoma," Srivastava says. The fact that the study made use of drugs that have already been approved for other uses should facilitate the implementation of this approach.