Alternative target for breast cancer drugs
"Our findings suggest that Ret kinase might be an attractive and novel alternative therapeutic target in selected groups of breast cancer patients," remarked Nancy Hynes, Professor at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research and the University of Basel, Switzerland. "Initial experiments in mice that serve as model organisms for the study of breast cancer have revealed that specific inhibitors significantly block the spread of cancer and decrease the number of metastatic tumours found in the lungs." The scientists examined tumour tissue microarrays of more than 100 breast cancer patients who had undergone surgery to remove their tumours. Antibodies were used to detect the levels of Ret in the samples. …