posted on Apr, 8 2010 @ 03:45 PM
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have potentially discovered how to reactivate the thousands of years worth of ancient virus remnants
in our DNA and set them loose on invasive cancer cells.
ESET, a protein that inhibits any destructive power of these retroviral relics, can be switched off, awakening the old virus material. But instead of
the retroviruses wreaking havoc on the body, they concentrate on the cancer cells because of their similarity to stem cells and leave non-cancerous
cells alone.
Link to scientific paper:
Proviral silencing in embryonic stem cells
requires the histone methyltransferase ESET
Summary:
A Drug That Manipulates Retroviruses To Fight Cancer