IITGN Team Develops Drug to Aid Prostate Cancer Treatment

Researchers Target Mechanism That Helps Cancer Cells Resist Standard Therapies

- | Ahmedabad Mirror Bureau

Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar researchers have identified a molecule that targets how cancer cells resist standard therapies. The Cancer Chemical Biology Lab team developed 5n, a potential prostate cancer inhibitor that disrupts cancer's survival tactics.

The molecule disables TLK1, a repair protein essential for tumor recovery in prostate cancer cells. This could help tackle a disease affecting over 1.4 million men annually.

Prostate cancer typically starts slow-growing and treatable but turns deadly once cells develop treatment resistance. Doctors use androgen deprivation therapy to block testosterone, which fuels tumor growth. But cancer cells bypass this blockade.

Targeting the repair crew
"Cancer cells activate a protein called Tousled-like kinase 1 (TLK1), which acts like a molecular repair crew," said Dr Sivapriya Kirubakaran, professor at IITGN's Department of Chemistry.