Researchers at Texas A&M University have identified the enzymes that switch on a little-understood stress-protection system in human cells, a system that may help some cancer cells survive chemotherapy. In lab experiments, blocking the pathway with an experimental drug, pevonedistat, alongside the chemotherapy drug cisplatin killed liver cancer cells more effectively than either treatment alone, the university reported.
The research was published in Nature Communications in April and publicized by the university on September 23. It targets one of the most frustrating problems in cancer care: tumors that survive treatment. The results come from cell experiments, not patients, and they do not change how liver cancer is treated today.
