Tapeworm Drug Could Be an Effective Treatment for Certain Cancers, Bio Space
19-Feb-2019
Scientists from A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) have discovered that niclosamide, an FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug, can effectively kill p53-defective cancer cells, potentially increasing the specificity for cancer targeting and sparing normal cells that carry wildtype p53. The p53 gene is a tumour suppressor gene that inhibits the growth of tumours, and if this gene is mutated, cancer cells are able to thrive. Working in collaboration with researchers from A*STAR’s Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) and p53 Laboratory, the Skin Research Institute of Singapore, Duke-NUS Medical School, the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, National Cancer Centre Singapore, and National University of Singapore, the IMCB research team found that niclosamide, a drug conventionally used in the treatment of intestinal tapeworm infections, induces metabolic stress in colon cancer cells without p53, thereby effectively causing death of these cancer cells.