"What Gunning [Patrick Gunning, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus] and his team have designed is in fact a molecule, one that latches onto proteins called Stat3 and Stat5. When working normally, the proteins switch on for a couple of minutes and help keep cells growing and alive. When malfunctioning, they don’t switch off and cause ever-growing tumours. These proteins play a key role in 70 per cent of known cancers, Gunning says.
"The designed molecule binds “beautifully” to the cancerous proteins and switches them off. In mice, it eliminated tumours in less than two weeks. The work earned Gunning the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Investigator Lectureship Award this year."
Full article: People to Watch: Patrick Gunning - thestar.com
