Big News: Cancer Cells Can Be Programmed To Make Them 'Normal'

There is stunning news in the cancer world. Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Florida have successfully reprogrammed the lung, breast and bladder cancer cells into healthy ones, according to Collective Evolution.

So far, the results were only part of the human cells in the lab, not human trials, yet they have huge implications and spell good potential for the future of cancer treatment.

"We can effectively reprogram them (cancer cells) to become and behave as normal," said Panos Anastasiadis, chair of the Department for Cancer Biology on Mayo Clinic's Florida Campus. "We can take very aggressive tumor cells that are growing and migrating, replenish them with the microRNAs that are deregulated, and that effectively turn them into normal cells."

The techniques and processes are interesting. By restoring the deregulated microRNA levels, it has been found that they stimulate the production of a protein called PLEKHA7, which breaks cell bonds at the moment that cells have replicated to a sufficient degree, according to The Telegraph. Deprivation of PLEKHA7 promotes cancer and stimulates harmful cell growth.

Researchers hope that it can help them to develop a technique in human bodies to "switch off" cancer cells.

"Initial experiments in some aggressive types of cancer are indeed very promising," said Anastasiadis. "It represents an unexpected new biology that provides the code, the software for turning off cancer," according to hngn.