Science Advances: A new gene target for aggressive lung cancer

Scientists at Northwestern Medicine have discovered and described a new gene responsible for activating an aggressive subtype of small-cell lung cancer, the P subtype, for which there is currently no effective treatment

Lu Wang, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said: "This cancer is resistant to many drugs, but not much

Lu Wang said: "When we tell patients that there is no effective treatment for this cancer, it is a devastating blow

Part of the problem is that the treatment for small cell lung cancer has been relatively unchanged, relying mainly on chemotherapy

Lu Wang said that based on genome-wide CRISPR screening, the genes the scientists found are crucial

Based on the new function they reported in the new paper, they named the gene POU2AF2

"Our ultimate goal is to enable a more personalized clinical treatment for small cell lung cancer that targets mechanisms that promote tumor growth by targeting factors that regulate molecular subtypes," said Wang, who is also a member

The study will be published in the October 5 issue of the journal Science Advances

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with 131,880 people expected to die from lung cancer

Although overall lung cancer screening and medical advances have improved, lung cancer is still diagnosed primarily at an advanced stage, when the tumor has spread to other parts of the body and is difficult to treat

The scientists' findings have the potential to serve as a biomarker that identifies this subtype of small-cell lung cancer

Other Northwestern authors include co-first author Zibo Zhao, co-first authors Aileen Patricia Szczepanski and Natsumi Tsuboyama, and co-authors Dr.