A short research update from the Smash Childhood Cancer team
Dear volunteers, we have received some insightful research news from the Smash Childhood Cancer team that we would like to share with you! During the restart process, the researchers at SCC have been hard at work discovering more ways to prevent cancer among children, and we can’t wait to assist them in their research soon. Here is what they shared with us:
“β-catenin (CTNNB1) is an important part of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, which is involved in the regulation of embryonic development and maintenance of organs and tissues. Activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling cascade inhibits degradation of β-catenin, which in turn stimulates transcription of downstream target genes.
Abnormal activation of β-catenin signaling is found in >70% of colorectal cancers and several pediatric tumors such as hepatoblastoma and craniopharyngioma. Activated β-catenin promotes cancer cell proliferation, survival and migration.
Therefore, targeting β-catenin strategies have been attempted by researchers but no definite effective options are available yet. Identifying specific inhibitors against β-catenin protein binding domains is one of our projects in Smash Childhood Cancers program. Tyuji Hoshino has synthesized >150 chemical compounds targeting β-catenin binding sites based on the information generated by the massive computer network donated by the volunteers. Ching Lau and Godfrey Chan have been verifying the in vitro and in vivo activities of some of the novel compounds generated, with the intention of possible clinical translation in the future.”
Adapted from Bubus 12, Wikipedia (June 2013)
Thanks for reading!
The World Community Grid team