LURING MELANOMA CELLS TO THEIR DEATH

Source: Ludwig Cancer Research, October 2014

Extract

“An experimental strategy pushes drug-resistant stem cells into a susceptible state—and kills them

It all began with a white mouse. Ludwig Oxford scientist Colin Goding first heard about the creature in 1992, through the scientific grapevine. The mouse that so piqued his curiosity carried a disruption in a long-sought gene that controlled the production of melanocytes, pigmented cells of the skin. Goding, who was using cells grown in culture to study the control of cellular pigmentation, had already identified a key DNA sequence pattern he called the M-box. He predicted that this M-box was bound by a master regulator in pigment cells. When he heard about the mutant mouse, he knew immediately that its disrupted gene encoded that missing regulator……"