Nov. 24, 2011

Can computer models based on fundamental laws assist the treatment for cancers?

Over the last decade, scientists have been intensely investigating on TRAIL, a protein released by our immune system, to treat malignant cancers. The benefit of using TRAIL, as compared to conventional chemo therapies, is that it specifically destroys carcinomas without affecting the surrounding normal tissues. This is done through a mechanism known as the programmed cell death or apoptosis. However, the TRAIL-based treatments so far have not been overtly successful as many carcinomas are able to ‘cheat’ the death signal, triggered by the TRAIL, into a survival signal.

A team of scientists from IAB, Keio University in Japan have formulated a method using a computational model and, with its aid,
predict a novel target that would in return cheat the cancer cells to switch from survival to apoptosis mode. The work of Dr Selvarajoo and colleagues, utilizing the fundamental physical law of conservation, pinpoints an intracellular target, whose removal will reroute most of the resultant signaling flux of TRAIL into a predetermined direction along the caspases-induced death pathway. Their findings are published in Scientific Reports, a newly launched journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

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http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111107/srep00144/full/srep00144.html