Olivia Newton-John’s foundation makes cancer breakthrough
Just over two months after her passing, the cancer research foundation Olivia Newton-John founded has made a significant discovery that could affect the treatment of a highly-aggressive pancreatic cancer.
The study, led by Professor Matthias Ernst, the director of the ONJ Cancer Research Institute in Melbourne and the head of LA Trobe’s School of Cancer Medicine, investigated potential targets for treating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
This aggressive form of cancer has a five-year survival rate, with nine out of ten patients still dying of the disease after receiving chemotherapy treatments due to reoccurrence in the same area or metastasis (where cancer spreads to other parts of the body).
Approximately 4,260 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year in Australia, with many experiencing few or no symptoms during the early stages.
Professor Ernst and his team identified a novel drug target that could make PDAC tumours more responsive to chemotherapy and immunotherapy and published their results in the journal Cell Reports.
They identified a protein called HCK (hematopoietic cell kinase), which has previously been correlated with poor survival rates and has been found in 95 percent of solid tumours, including PDAC.
After comparing PDAC tumours to non-cancerous samples, they found that the tumours expressed this protein at a higher rate.
They then wanted to determine whether HCK was involved in the growth of tumours and metastasis, by inserting PDAC tumours into normal mice and mice that have had the gene responsible for making HCK removed.
In comparison to the normal mice, the mice without the HCK gene had smaller tumours and didn’t develop metastatic lesions.
This confirmed that HCK is involved in the progression of this kind of cancer and that preventing the gene from creating HCK proteins could be a potential target for new cancer treatments.
The team reported that targeting HCK could help reduce immune suppression caused by the increased levels of cancer cells that reduce the ability of our immune system to identify and fight cancer, making immunotherapy treatments more effective.
While he cautioned that the study was still in its early stages, Professor Ernst is hopeful that the ONJ Institute can build on their findings and run clinical trials in the future.
“Because we work in the same building as our oncologist colleagues at Austin Health, our discoveries in the laboratory can be quickly translated into patient trials,” he said.
Dr Ashleigh Poh, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from the ONJ Institute added that the findings could have big implications for pancreatic cancer treatment.
“The survival rate of pancreatic cancer has not improved over the past few decades,” Dr Poh said.
“We hope to eventually translate these findings into the clinic and improve survival outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients.”
Images: The ONJ Institute