Sankaran “Thai” Thayumanavan, distinguished professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering, and Ryan Lu and Jithu Krishna, graduate students and lead authors, have developed precise methods for shredding or repairing and replacing specific cancer-causing proteins in a malignant cell and could have applications beyond cancer to a wide range of immunological diseases.
The team successfully demonstrated its technique by implanting four different proteins in the cellular wall. With a little chemistry, they believe that they could do the same with many of the therapeutic proteins currently on the market. The great advantage of this method is that instead of working with damaged proteins, it becomes possible to incorporate perfectly functional ones.