Researchers at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology have discovered a promising strategy to improve treatment responses in multiple myeloma patients by blocking a protein that plays a key role in drug resistance. The study, published in Pharmacological Research, offers a potential new strategy to improve outcomes for patients whose disease has become less responsive to standard therapies.

A study by researchers from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS, Mayo Clinic, IBYME (CONICET), and CaixaResearch Institute demonstrates the role of the Galectin-1 protein in the nucleus of the cells surrounding the tumor—fibroblasts—contributing to their activation.

Activated fibroblasts promote tumor growth and spread, while also conferring resistance to treatments. This may be one of the reasons behind the high aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of only 10%.

The study’s findings open the door to new therapeutic strategies against this type of cancer, focusing on the possibility of inhibiting this protein within the cells that surround and protect the tumor.

Researchers uncover how over-reducing breast motion in bras could increase back pain during exercise

David A. Drew, PhD, of the Clinical & Translational Epidemiology Unit and Division of Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the corresponding author of a paper published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, “Droplet vs. Picowell: Considerations for single-cell transcriptomic profiling of human colon biopsies