Discovering New Cancer Treatments in the ’Dark Matter’ of the Human Genome

Microscopy pictures of three-dimentional lung cancer spheroids transfected with green fluorescent-labelled ASOs. UniBE / NCCR RNA & Disease - Researchers of the University of Bern and the Insel Hospital, University Hospital Bern, have developed a screening method to discover new drug targets for cancer treatment in the so-called -Dark Matter- of the genome. They applied their method to non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the greatest cancer killer for which effective therapies are urgently sought. They could show that inhibiting identified targets could greatly slow down cancer growth, and their method is adaptable to other cancers. Cancer is in Switzerland the second leading cause of death. Among the different types of cancers, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) kills the most patients and remains largely incurable. Unfortunately, even newly approved therapies can extend the life of patients only by a few months and only few survive the metastatic stadium long-term.