Hot on the heels of research showing a Chinese herb could stop body systems protecting cancer cells from attack, comes another study. This time it is from Bart’s Cancer Institute.
Apparently, there’s a molecule in blood cells that tells the body to repair itself when damage has occurred. And this affords some protection to cancer cells making them less vulnerable to attack from chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The molecule is called Focal Adhesion Kinase (or, FAK).
Scientists are hopeful that if they can knock out FAK, the cancer cells will become more vulnerable to orthodox treatments.
The work was conducted with mice.