treat cancer and autoimmune disease tagged posts

This is Dr Ruth Kluck of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Credit: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

The apoptosis pathway could lead to drugs to treat cancer and autoimmune disease. Failure of apoptosis can allow cancer cells to grow unchecked or immune cells to inappropriately attack the body. Protein Bak is central to apoptosis. In healthy cells Bak sits in an inert state but when a cell receives a signal to die, Bak transforms into a killer protein that destroys the cell. Melbourne researchers Dr Sweta Iyer, Dr Ruth Kluck and colleagues have discovered an antibody they had produced to study Bak actually bound to the Bak protein and triggered its activation.

The 7D10 antibody triggers mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization by binding to th...