Artificial human skin paves the way to new skin cancer therapy: Research, Health News, ET HealthWorld
ANI
March 09, 2023, 12:18 IST
Copenhagen: By using artificial human skin, a research group from the University of Copenhagen has managed to block invasive growth in a skin cancer model.
The study has been published in Science Signaling and looks at what actually happens when a cell turns into a cancer cell.
"We have been studying one of the cells' signalling pathways, the so-called TGF beta pathway. This pathway plays a critical role in the cell's communication with its surroundings, and it controls e.g., cell growth and cell division. If these mechanisms are damaged, the cell may turn into a cancer cell and invade the surrounding tissue," explains Professor and Team Lead Hans Wandall from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.
Under normal circumstances, your skin cells will not just start to invade the hypodermis and wreak havoc. Instead, they will produce a new layer of skin. But when cancer cells emerge, the cells no longer respect the boundaries between skin layers, and they start to invade each other. This is called invasive growth.
Hans Wandall and his colleagues have been studying the TGF beta pathway and applied methods for blocking invasive growth and thus curbing the invasive growth in skin cancer.
"We already have various drugs that can block these signalling pathways and which may be used in tests. We have used some of them in this study," explains Associate Professor and co-author of the study Sally Dabelsteen from the School of Dentistry.
Hans Wandall and Sally Dabelsteen have worked together with Dr. Zilu Ye and Professor Jesper V. Olsen from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.
"Some of these drugs have already been tested on humans, and some are in the process of being tested in connection with other types of cancer. They could also be tested on skin cancer specifically," she says.
Thursday, March 9, 2023 at 6:48 am