This story originally appeared in the JC Israel Briefing. You can sign up to receive the briefing daily here.
Researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University have identified a protein that plays a central role in enabling aggressive breast cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body, offering hope to treating the aggressive disease.
Triple-negative breast cancer remains one of the most challenging diagnoses to receive. While medical advances have improved the ability to surgically remove primary tumours, the true danger lies in metastasis, which is the spread of cancer cells to vital organs like the lungs, liver, or brain.
The research team has now identified a specific protein, PKC-eta (protein kinase C-eta), that drives this deadly cell migration in triple-negative breast cancer.
The research was led by Prof. Etta Livneh and Prof. Moshe Elkabets and by their postdoctoral fellow, Liju Vijaya Steltar of the Faculty of Health Sciences. Additional researchers included Dr. Ofir Cohen and others from additional BGU departments and international partners.
The findings were published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.
This story originally appeared in the JC Israel Briefing. You can sign up to receive the briefing daily here.
To get more Israel news, click here to sign up for our free Israel Briefing newsletter.