New technology prevents the spread of malignant tumors

SGGP 11/25/2023 07:56

Researchers at the Centenary Institute, Australia have successfully developed a new technology called Invasion-Block used to screen and identify drugs that can be used to prevent the spread of malignant tumors.

Illustration by New Atlas

The team combined Invasion-Block with an automated image analysis process adapted from astrophysics called Smoothen-Mask and Reveal (S-MARVEL), which they used to remove artifacts and significantly improve the quality of their microscopic image datasets of invasive species. They then screened 3,840 drugs in two drug regulatory-approved compound libraries for their ability to inhibit the formation of invasive tumors in melanoma cells and found that the most effective compounds were kinase inhibitors.

Among the kinase inhibitors identified, the researchers tested the effectiveness of an ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) inhibitor in the lab. They used CRISPR gene editing technology to knock out the gene responsible for expressing ATM kinase in melanoma cells and found that the cells became less invasive and did not spread to the lymph nodes.