(L-R): Lucienne Thommes, Director of the Cancer Foundation, Dr. Sébastien Rinaldetti, Dr. Carlo Bock, President of the Cancer Foundation;
Luxembourg's Fondation Cancer has awarded a research grant to Dr. Sébastien Rinaldetti worth €75,000 which will enable young Luxembourgers to conduct research in personalised medicine in a highly specialised laboratory at the renowned University of Colorado Cancer Center in Denver, USA.
Personalised medicine is about developing customised substances to target cells that have certain genetic modifications (mutations) and become malignant. The targeted action of these substances avoids side effects such as those related to chemotherapy. Dr. Rinaldetti's research project at the University of Colorado Cancer Center is about a very common genetic abnormality of telomerase, mutations of the TERT promoter. Telomerase is a protein that protects against cellular aging, allowing cells to survive for years and to divide without hindrance. Such telomerase activity in cancer cells is therefore fatal for the survival of patients. This mutation is found in 60 to 70% of tumors of the bladder, skin and brain (gliomas).
The goal of this project is to find custom-made substances to destroy all cancer cells that carry a mutation in telomerase. These specific telomerase inhibitors would then form a new pharmacological class, the TERT promoter inhibitors, no drugs of comparable efficacy have yet been described in scientific literature.
