Melanoma fights treatment two ways at once — and an existing leukaemia drug blocked both in the lab

Melanoma is hard to treat partly because it cheats twice: it restarts its own growth signals after drugs block them, and it summons immune-suppressing cells that keep cancer-fighting T cells away. A University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center team, publishing in Nature Communications, traced both tricks to two proteins, ABL1 and ABL2. Then they tried nilotinib — a drug already approved for chronic myeloid leukaemia that blocks those very proteins — against melanoma cells in the lab. It shut down the growth signals and reduced the cancer's ability to attract suppressor cells, letting T cells return. 'What makes this approach promising is the possibility of attacking resistance from two directions,' says Professor Rina Plattner. It is early, preclinical work — but the candidate drug is one doctors already know well.

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