New strides in cancer treatment

STOCKHOLM, OCT. 8. Mr. Leland Hartwell of the United States and Dr. Timothy Hunt and Sir Paul Nurse, both of Britain, were today awarded the Nobel medicine prize for 2001 for research on cells that opens new possibilities for the treatment of cancer, the Nobel jury said. - AFP

Our Science Correspondent reports:

The Nobel laureates have made one of the most important findings in the basic functioning of any eukaryotic organisms - yeasts, plants animal and human beings - namely control of the cell cycle. An adult human being, for instance, has billions of cells, of which enormous numbers are in a continuously dividing state replacing dying ones. Before a cell divides itself, it has to go through a few important stages of the cell cycle like growing in size, duplicating its chromosomes and exact distribution between the two dividing daughter cells.

Though cell division is a well-known phenomenon, it is only during the last few decades that the molecular mechanisms that regulate the cell cycle and hence cell division, has been known.

The Nobel laureates have identified the key molecules that play a crucial role in the cell cycle control. Different phases of the cell cycle need to be precisely coordinated. Any error could lead to chromosomal defects in the dividing daughter cells. These defects in turn could lead to chromosomal alterations very commonly seen in the case of cancer. And understanding it opens up new vistas and principles of treating one of the most common, yet difficult, to cure diseases ravaging the modern world.

Already clinical work is in progress using the findings of the cell cycle knowledge to treat cancer.

Mr. Leland Hartwell identified one of the genes, CDC 28, which controls the first step in the progression through the G1 phase of the cell cycle.

Sir Paul Nurse identified the CDK 1 (cyclin dependent kinase 1) gene that regulates the different phases of the cell cycle. Studying its role in a yeast, he found the gene controlling the transition from one phase (G1) to another (S). He showed that the gene encodes a protein that is a member of CDK. The activisation of CDK is dependent on linking to or removal of phosphate groups from proteins.

Dr Tim Hunt discovered the protein Cyclin which controls the CDK activity in the cycle.

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