American researchers have developed a synthetic molecule that selectively blocks the expression of genes responsible for promoting cancerous tumour progression.
The compound - HBS 1 - is a protein domain mimetic, specifically designed to interrupt the interaction between two proteins at the point where intracellular signalling converges and ups the regulation of genes that promote tumour growth.
Scientific efforts to design compounds that inhibit human transcription factors have been unsuccessful in the past, due to the low affinity of such molecules to bind to shallow surfaces.
The success of HBS-1 has positive implications for the development of similar molecules that can interrupt protein cell to protein cell interactions in a host of human diseases.
Read more at New York University