A research carried out through collaboration between the University of British Columbia, the University of Copenhagen and the BC Cancer Agency and published in cancer cell journal has discovered that a particular malarial protein, called VAR2CSA, which sticks to a type of sugar found in the placenta and tumor cells while researching how to protect pregnant women from malaria, which is dangerous because it attaches itself to the placenta.
They were able to successfully target and kill 95% of the cancer cell lines investigated, which included brain, blood, prostate and breast in vitro and similarly when tested on mice.
It is hope that this discovery will make it possible to deliver cancer drugs in a precise, controlled way to tumors.
Study coauthor and project leader Mads Daugaard said in a statement “Scientists have spent decades trying to find biochemical similarities between placenta tissue and cancer, but we just didn’t have the technology to find it. When my colleagues discovered how malaria uses VAR2CSA to embed itself in the placenta, we immediately saw its potential to deliver cancer drugs in a precise, controlled way to tumors.”
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