Croatian Scientist in Revolutionary Lung Cancer Treatment Discovery

An international team of scientists from the University of Toronto, under the leadership of Croatian molecular biologist Igor Štagljar, have discovered a new biomarker for lung cancer…

‘This is a smart drug that selectively destroys tumor cells and leaves healthy cells intact,” explained Štagljar to HTV.

‘We found a protein called Crk2. A bad molecule which binds to a mutated form of protein that accelerates the proliferation of tumor cells,” said Dr.Štagljar, who is Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Štagljar and his team are on the verge of the final findings of the drug for lung cancer – a deadly disease which claims more than 1.6 million people a year worldwide and 3,000 people a year in Croatia.

‘We are now about four years away from the administration of the drug. The findings suggest that the drug is likely to be applicable in the treatment of other cancers, but this research is still in progress. The drug will initially be used on only a small number of patients in order to test the toxicity and side effects,” Štagljar says.