Dosage Makes All the Difference! Zahnow & Baylin Labs Show Epigenetic Reprogramming of Cancer

Many of you are probably attending AACR this week. Cancer research into Epi-drugs is certainly a big theme. Along those lines, there is good news from the Cynthia Zahnow and Sephen Baylin teams at John Hopkins University in this paper, Hsing-Chen Tsai et al. Transient Low Doses of DNA-Demethylating Agents Exert Durable Antitumor Effets on Hematological and Epithelial Tumor Cells.(March 2012) Cancer Cell 21, 430–446 . I’ll highlight the best bits. Obviously, the paper is awesome, and you need to read the details! The authors explain one of the most “striking effects” they observed is their accumulated evidence that this low dosage epigenetic chemotherapy can broadly reprogram stem-like cancer cells in solid cancers. Now, the exact molecular mechanisms of these … Continue reading →