黑料吃瓜群网

In research published by the journal, Melbourne scientists have examined how the body鈥檚 own immune system can be used to stop the progression of .

鈥檚 research group at Hudson Institute of Medical Research has expanded the discovery of a naturally occurring signalling protein found in the female reproductive tract, interferon epsilon (IFN-e), and its potential application in treatment of ovarian cancer.

This involves harnessing the body鈥檚 own system of signalling proteins to fight the disease, according to the researchers.

Part of the research group is , who has looked at how treatments which target the body鈥檚 immune system can be optimised to improve its ability to fight the tumour. This also formed the PhD project of Dr Zoe Marks, which established that the protein protects against ovarian cancer via tumour cells as well as the body鈥檚 immune system.

鈥淲e know that in high grade serous ovarian cancers (the commonest form of ovarian cancer) tumour cells recruit and activate 鈥榠mmunosuppressive鈥� cells which prevent anti-tumour immune cells from killing tumour cells, so we鈥檙e aiming to develop new therapeutics which can reverse that process and improve survival rates,鈥� Dr Campbell said.

This work was co-supervised by post-doctoral scientist Dr Nollaig Bourke, who found that women with high grade serous ovarian cancer no longer had the normal expression of interferon epsilon.

鈥淲e tried giving interferon epsilon back to help block the growth of ovarian cancer cells and therefore prevent the growth of primary and secondary tumours. The results were very striking, confirming that interferon epsilon was a very effective tumour suppressor in ovarian cancer,鈥� Bourke said.

Hertzog said that the study explained that interferon epsilon works 鈥渁s a tumour suppressant, and that it is lost during the process of ovarian tumour formation鈥�.

鈥淲e know from pre-clinical models that administering it will dramatically inhibit ovarian cancer growth, particularly in cases where the cancer has metastasised into the peritoneal cavity,鈥� Hertzog said.

The full study, 鈥業nterferon-蔚 is a novel tumour suppressor and restricts ovarian cancer鈥�, can be found .

Image caption: Dr Zoe Marks, Professor Paul Hertzog and Dr Nicole Campbell. Credit: Hudson Institute of Medical Research.