Glasgow team’s ‘encouraging’ discovery in cancer fight

Scientists have said an “encouraging” discovery has been made in the fight against the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

A team from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow said it had proved a specific gene, P-Rex1, must be present before malignant melanoma can spread in a patient.

Using a grant from the Association for International Cancer Research, Professor Owen Sansom and his team conducted a study using mice, which mirror the common human genetics of melanoma, and found that if P-Rex1 was absent from the cells, the melanoma tumours were unable to spread.

They were able to decipher the exact mechanism P-Rex1 uses to spread and which is blocked when the gene is removed.

They then confirmed that human melanoma samples, taken from patients’ tumours, contained raised levels of P-Rex1.

Prof Sansom said: “These findings are encouraging.”