Researchers at the University of Scotland have discovered a protein that can influence viruses developing and even can control cancer. Now the fight is on to fully understand how it works in the hope of turning the laboratory research into a treatment.
The protein is called Hira. Technically it is a histone (组蛋白) complex, but it is easier to understand in terms of what it can do. Three years ago Dr Taranjit Singh Rai and colleagues at the Beatson Cancer Institute and Glasgow University reported that Hira could possibly suppress the division of cells that causes cancer. In the course of that research, Dr Rai found out something unusual. In the lab they have established that the Hira protein has a role to play in the anti-viral fight, thus, making it have a fundamental role to play in fighting against cancer.
The trick in using it to fight diseases may lie in increasing Hira levels in our cells. "I think what researchers might be interested in is how we can increase levels of this protein to deal with the viruses better, Dr Rai said.
Dr Rai has led an international study and support has come from Cancer Research UK and the results are published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research. But there is a major concern that the research is still limited to the laboratory.
It is going to take some time, probably years, before this work can move out of the lab and into clinics and hospitals. But the researchers are excited Hira will one day be the basis of a new approach in medicine.
