Cancer cells threw away their backup — and scientists found how to use that against them

Almost every bowel cancer, and more than half of breast cancers, runs on a growth signal called WNT that is stuck in the 'on' position. Switching it off has been maddeningly hard: the signal is kept working by two helper enzymes, TNKS1 and TNKS2, and healthy cells need them too, so blocking both hurts healthy tissue. A Weill Cornell Medicine team noticed something hiding in plain sight — as cancers grow, many of them accidentally delete the gene for TNKS1, leaving TNKS2 as their only helper. So the researchers built a molecule that blocks TNKS2 about 30 times more strongly than TNKS1. In lab dishes, it slowed the cancer cells that had lost TNKS1 and left normal cells alone. It is early, preclinical work, published on 2 November in Nature Chemical Biology — but it points to treatments that use a cancer's own lost gene as its weak spot.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation