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13 Aug 2008
A discovery with the potential to improve drug treatments for a number of conditions - including leukaemia - has been made by scientists in Australia, it has been reported.
Researchers from St Vincent's Institute in Melbourne, collaborating with the Hanson Institute in Adelaide, have created the first three-dimensional image of a protein receptor in white blood cells which can cause leukaemia when it malfunctions.
Professor Michael Parker states that the receptor interacts with a hormone called GM-CSF and that when this occurs, it can result in uncontrolled growth, which relates to cancer.
He notes that many forms of leukaemia are treated with chemotherapy that destroys normal cells and bone marrow as well as the diseased cells.
"We hope that this discovery will lead to targeted therapies, more specific to the malfunctioning cells seen in diseases such as leukaemia," he writes in the journal Cell.
Factors believed to increase risk of leukaemia - which is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterised by abnormal production of white blood cells - include exposure to radiation, smoking and some blood disorders.
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