Sancar’s brain cancer research set for human trials

Turkish Nobel laureate Professor Dr. Aziz Sancar has announced that his groundbreaking research on brain cancer is on the verge of entering the clinical trial phase, where it will be tested on humans for a two-year period.

Sancar first disclosed what he defined as an "exciting discovery" on Feb. 17, 2022, and has since conducted extensive work in his laboratory, continuing experiments on mice. Sancar was one of three scientists who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on DNA repair in 2015.

In a recent interview, he noted that the base idea of his research has been ongoing for a decade.

Sancar explained that one of the most frequently employed chemicals in molecular biology is the EdU molecule. A few years ago, scientists discovered that EdU, when introduced into cell cultures, could eliminate cancerous cells, though the research failed to progress significantly.

Highlighting that brain tumors rank as the 10th leading cause of death, Sancar underscored the inadequacy of current cancer medications, which are unable to traverse the "blood-brain barrier" effectively.

The "blood-brain barrier" is widely defined as a special wall that protects the brain from harmful substances and controls the exchange of materials between the blood and the brain. This barrier allows only necessary and beneficial substances to pass through, while blocking harmful ones.

He emphasized that Cisplatin, a drug widely administered to cancer patients, cannot breach this barrier, whereas the EdU molecule has demonstrated an ability to penetrate the brain effortlessly.

"Our discovery introduces a compound that easily enters the brain and selectively eradicates cancer cells," Sancar remarked.

Following extensive laboratory...