When developing anticancer therapeutics, most researchers aim to kill cancerous cells. However, Hiroki Yokota’s approach is to control their growth by knowing how to grow them.
Yokota, a professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI, an adjunct professor of anatomy, cell biology and physiology at the IU School of Medicine, and a researcher at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, is developing a new method of treating patients with multiple types of cancer, especially bone-related cancers.
Yokota’s background in engineering and biology originally led him to study bone biology, and more specifically osteoporosis, and bone metastases from breast and prostate cancer. He has now shifted his research to developing anticancer peptides to inhibit a broad spectrum of cancer growth. To do this, Yokota has generated induced tumor-suppressing cells (iTSCs) and created the anticancer peptides from tumor-suppressing proteins.
Through this work, he has discovered that many proteins act differently inside and outside cancer cells. Inside, they make tumors stronger. However, when they’re outside the cells, they actually kill the surrounding cancer cells without harming healthy ones.
“Cancer cells are pretty clever and selfish. They use certain proteins to make themselves stronger, but those same proteins can end up attacking nearby weak cancer cells, making things worse,” Yokota said. “It is a survival contest, where only the most aggressive cancer cells manage to thrive.”
The anticancer peptides, the derivative of the most aggressive cancer cells or iTSCs, can also be used alongside existing treatments without causing many side effects.
Yokota recently published papers detailing how these peptides can be used to treat bone cancer and aggressive pancreatic cancer.
Yokota has a long-standing relationship with the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office and has disclosed 31 inventions over the years. The ICO has furthered Yokota’s research through patent filings, and now Yokota is looking for partnerships and licensing opportunities with the industry to develop and test his anticancer peptides for the development of therapeutics.
Bri Heron, technology marketing manager at Indiana University’s Innovation and Commercialization Office, contributed to this story.
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