Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics Aziz Sancar, together with his team, discovered that the molecule known as EdU, which is frequently used in experiments in laboratories, can be used especially in the treatment of brain cancers. Their findings were published urgently in the journal of the American National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Killer cells that kill living cells discovered for the first time
Sancar: “We did not expect such an effect”
Aziz Sancar stated that they discovered it by chance while searching for an answer to a question he wondered about the DNA Repair System that won him the Nobel Prize.
DNA, as is known, due to external and internal factors, chemotherapy, ultraviolet, smoking, bad environment and nutrition, etc. takes too much damage. The DNA Repair System repairs this damage. The Dual Cut-Repair mechanism cuts out the damaged part of the DNA helix and replaces it with the correct one. Thus, our DNA works undamaged. But this has been proven in the test tube. Is this exactly what happens inside the human cell? Seeking an answer to the question, Sancar and his team used a molecule called EdU in the experiments. The experiments yielded an unexpected result; The EdU molecule acted on intact DNA as if the DNA had been damaged and activated the repair mechanism.
Used to study people’s DNA
The EdU molecule was known to be moderately toxic, but Sancar and his team figured out how this molecule definitively killed the cell. According to Sancar’s statement, there is evidence that EdU kills cancer cells, but the results have never been followed. Today, scientists in the laboratory use EdU to examine DNA, but they do not know that this molecule has a lethal effect by causing damage to DNA. So what does this discovery have to do with brain cancer?
Targets tumors directly
According to Sancar’s statement, if EdU is given to a patient with brain cancer, it will go to the brain, enter the DNA of cancerous cells and kill the tumor without damaging the neurons. Healthy brain cells will not be damaged because brain neurons do not synthesize DNA, that is, they do not reproduce, while cancerous cells reproduce rapidly independently. The EdU molecule can target and destroy these tumors.
Works are progressing fast
Sancar will continue to work with a well-known professor on brain tumors. Although the treatment of brain cancers is very difficult, patients with glioblastoma (the most common brain tumor among brain tumors and the most difficult to treat) can live up to 15 months on average even if they are treated. In this respect, Sancar’s discovery is of great importance.
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