Protein targeted in fight against cervical cancer

Researchers at Leeds University have become the first to produce sufficient amounts of the protein, which is capable of transforming cells and initiating cancer, in the laboratory, enabling them to study it in detail for the first time.The project, funded by the charity Yorkshire Cancer Research, will focus on using drugs to target the protein, which is produced by the human papilloma virus (HPV).

The Leeds team has already discovered that the protein forms a structure that is able to puncture cell membranes but hopes to use drugs to block it in a similar way that anti-viral drugs are used to treat flu.

Andrew Macdonald, who is leading the research, said: “We are really excited about this study. Very little is known about this protein because no one has ever really been able to express it in the lab in sufficient quantities to study it, but we have recently learned how to do that.

“There is a major drive in the HPV community to develop therapeutics, hand in hand with the cervical cancer vaccination, but the question has always been ‘What do you target?’ We have now found a function that we can use to target these drugs.”

HPV is the primary cause of cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in women in the developed world and the most common in women in the developing world.

A national programme was launched in 2008 to vaccinate teenage girls against HPV, but the jab has no effect on those already infected by the virus and it is believed that a significant decline in cases of cervical cancer will not become apparent until 2040.

The Breast Cancer Campaign charity has awarded grants worth £240,000 to researchers in the region.

Valerie Speirs, of Leeds University, will mount a two-year project to learn more about how genes are involved in breast cancer and their role in progression of the disease. Ingunn Holen, at Sheffield University, will lead research to look at how drug combinations stop breast cancer growth and spread.