Scientists discovered a new molecule that kills even the deadliest cancer

Recently, a tiny group of people with rectal cancer saw their disease vanish after experimental treatment.

Now, in another breakthrough, a new compound synthesized by Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn, a University of Texas at Dallas researcher, has been found to kill a broad spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer, leaving healthy cells unscathed.

He exploited a weakness in cells that were hitherto not targeted by the other drugs.

The study, which was carried out in isolated cells, both in human cancer tissue and in human cancers grown in mice, was published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Ahn, a co-corresponding author of the study and a UT Dallas associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, has been working on small molecules that target protein-protein interactions in cells for more than a decade. Previously, he had developed potential therapeutic candidate compounds for treatment-resistant breast cancer and prostate cancer.

In his current research, Ahn and his colleagues tested a new compound he synthesized called ERX-41 for its effects on breast cancer cells - those that contained estrogen receptors (ERs) and those that do not.

Now, there are effective treatments for patients with ER-positive breast cancer, but only a few treatment options for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) exist. It lacks receptors for estrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor 2. TNBC is known to affect women under 40 and has worse outcomes than other types of breast cancer.

"The ERX-41 compound did not kill healthy cells, but it wiped out tumor cells regardless of whether the cancer cells had estrogen receptors," Ahn said. "In fact, it killed the triple-negative breast cancer cells better than it killed the ER-positive cells.

"This was puzzling to us at the time. We knew it must be targeting something other than estrogen receptors in the TNBC cells, but we didn't know what that was."

Soon, the researchers discovered that ERX-41 binds to lysosomal acid lipase A (LIPA), a cellular protein. LIPA is found in a cell structure called the endoplasmic reticulum, an organelle that processes and folds proteins.

"For a tumor cell to grow quickly, it has to produce a lot of proteins, and this creates stress on the endoplasmic reticulum," Ahn said. "Cancer cells significantly overproduce LIPA, much more so than healthy cells. By binding to LIPA, ERX-41 jams the protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, which becomes bloated, leading to cell death."

The team tested the molecule in healthy mice and noted that there were no ill effects. "It took us several years to chase down exactly which protein was being affected by ERX-41. That was the hard part. We chased many dead ends, but we did not give up," Ahn said.

"Triple-negative breast cancer is particularly insidious - it targets women at younger ages; it's aggressive, and it's treatment-resistant. I'm really glad we've discovered something that has the potential to make a significant difference for these patients," Ahn said.

The researchers then fed the compound to mice with human forms of cancerous tumors, and they got smaller.

The molecule also killed cancer cells in human tissue that were gathered from patients who had their tumors removed.

They found that ERX-41 is effective against other cancer types with elevated endoplasmic reticulum stress, including hard-to-treat pancreatic and ovarian cancers and glioblastoma, the most 'aggressive and lethal primary brain cancer'.

To investigate the ERX-41 molecule, Ahn worked with collaborators, including co-corresponding authors Dr. Ganesh Raj, professor of urology and pharmacology at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as well as Dr. Ratna Vadlamudi, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Health San Antonio. Dr. Tae-Kyung Lee, a former UTD research scientist in Ahn's Bio-Organic/Medicinal Chemistry Lab, was also involved in synthesizing the compound.

Ahn is a joint holder of patents issued and pending on ERX-41 and related compounds, which have been licensed to the Dallas-based startup EtiraRX, a company co-founded in 2018 by Ahn, Raj, and Vadlamudi. The company has announced that it plans to begin clinical trials of ERX-41 as early as the first quarter of 2023, which offers the hope of effective new treatments. to-treat cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer, leaving healthy cells unscathed.

He exploited a weakness in cells that were hitherto not targeted by the other drugs.

The study, which was carried out in isolated cells, both in human cancer tissue and in human cancers grown in mice, was published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Recently, a tiny group of people with rectal cancer saw their disease vanish after experimental treatment.

It was a very small trial done by doctors at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, wherein the patients took a drug called dostarlimab for six months. At the end of their trial, every single one of their tumors disappeared.

He exploited a weakness in cells that were hitherto not targeted by the other drugs.

The study, which was carried out in isolated cells, both in human cancer tissue and in human cancers grown in mice, was published in the journal Nature Cancer.

"This was puzzling to us at the time. We knew it must be targeting something other than estrogen receptors in the TNBC cells, but we didn't know what that was."

The researchers then fed the compound to mice with human forms of cancerous tumors, and they got smaller.

The molecule also killed cancer cells in human tissue that were gathered from patients who had their tumors removed.

"That’s a wonderful story! Praise God, indeed!🙏"

Yes, and absolutely true.

Many years later, when I was a practicing physician, I worked with the doctor--quite elderly by then--who had been my father's physician and who had told my mother, on that fateful night, that my father would not live through the night.

One day, I thanked him for saving my father's life, and I told him that if he hadn't, I would never have known my father.

"He's the sickest man I ever saw get well," he said to me.

If he had died, my mother would have been destitute with two children under the age of five.

He got well, resumed his work, paid for a house and a car, put away enough money for my sister and me to go to college, took us on wonderful vacation trips. My mother miraculously got a job teaching school, which was what she had always wanted to do.

Then, on Thanksgiving Day, when I was 14 years old, my father suddenly and unexpectedly died of a massive myocardial infarction.

We had received a reprieve. His death was delayed until he could get his family settled. Then he went on to the next life.

Miracles happen. Most are not as dramatic as that one. We're not aware of most of them.

I have received gifts from God, all right, and I live in a state of perpetual gratitude.

One night, as a medical student, I was sent to clean the suppurating neck wound of a man dying of cancer. It was a terrible task, quite gruesome. He kept coughing bloody phlegm as I cleaned the wound. The phlegm got on me.

It was after midnight, and I was dead tired. I also needed to study. I was exhausted.

As I cleaned his wound, he kept apologizing to me for putting me through this. He was so miserable. I wanted so badly to help him.

After one of his apologies, I said this to him: "Let me tell you something. There is no place on earth I would rather be, and there is nothing that I would rather be doing, than this."

It was true.

I think it helped him.

In that moment I loved him as much as I have ever loved anyone--my wife, my children--anyone.

Tears come to my eyes and roll down my cheeks as I tell this, though it was many years ago.

I never saw him again.

In that moment, I knew that I had been blessed. I didn't know the magnitude of the blessing until many years later.

Some of our greatest blessings are faith, hope, and charity. I have always known the presence of God, even as a small child. My faith never wavered, even as I watched precious people, even children, die of cruel diseases, even when I witnessed the unimaginable horrors of Dachau. Certainly hope never failed me. The blessing I received from this dying man was the realization that I had been blessed charity, as well as faith and hope. The love I felt for him was as powerful as anything I have ever known. These blessings are like a well, available to all of us, from which each of us can take as much as he wants.

Every moment of life can be as transcendent as that moment, certainly staring into the beauty of a wildflower or a sunset, listening to music, or being lost in ecstasy of love with the beloved, but also in the simplest of every day moments.

Never despair. Keep going. And note tagline.

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