Hope kindles for blood cancer patients

A team led by an Indian-origin researcher, has discovered a new drug that could alone or combined with chemotherapy provide better treatment for patients with blood cancer. Lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, is the most common form of cancer in children but also affects adults and is characterised by an overproduction of immature white blood cells, and lesser red blood cells.

The drugs broke down the central hub of DNA repair, and the HDAC 1,2 inhibitor actually reduced different repair protein functions. In this study, led by Srividya Bhaskara, Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, when mice were treated with the HDAC 1,2 inhibitor or the combination of HDAC1,2 and doxorubicin -- the chemotherapy drug -- their bone marrow started turning from pale to red, indicating the white blood cells were being replaced with red blood cells and no side effect of the treatment was seen in mice.

"We completely nailed down how the HDAC1,2 inhibitor affects DNA repair. This is so important, not just for this cancer, but any cancer that is repair-addicted," Bhaskara stated.