HSCI physician-scientists Daniel Tenen and Li Chai want to turn off a gene to stop cancer without poisoning the patient.

• The ideal cancer drug would harm cancer cells without hurting normal cells.
• In their quest to discover one good therapy, HSCI scientists Dan Tenen and Li Chai have zeroed in on SALL4, a gene that is essential for growth in both embryos and cancers.
• A cellular therapy that deprives cancer cells of SALL4 would stop a third of cancers in their tracks.

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Researchers at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), in collaboration with Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), have discovered a new way in which the development of lung cancer can be stopped. In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers found that inhibiting a protein called BMI1 impaired tumour growth in lung cancer.

The study was led by HSCI Principal Faculty member Daniel Tenen, MD, his associate Elena Levantini, PhD, and included first author Dr Kol Jia Yong, a former CSI...

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have settled a century-old debate over whether occurrence of DNA methylation acts to silence gene expression, or if genes are turned off by other means before they are methylated.

As explicated today in the journal...