The molecule, EdU, mimics thymine in DNA, replacing it and acting as a tracker, UNC Health said Aug. 23. It could be the basis for an effective brain cancer treatment, since it triggers a runaway DNA repair process in cells that are actively dividing.
Most healthy cells in the brain are nondividing, while cancerous cells divide rapidly.
“We want to stress that this is a basic but important scientific discovery,” said study senior author Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD. “The scientific community has much work ahead to figure out if EdU could actually become a weapon against cancer.”
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