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Dec 3, 2024, 14:22

Danish Cancer Institute – Scientific Achievements in 2024

Danish Cancer Institute shared on LinkedIn:

“Scientific Achievements in 2024

1. In March 2024, DCI researchers published a new study revealing a significant drop in cancer-causing HPV virus. The research focused on evaluating the frequency of HPV infections among young Danish men following a decade of vaccinating women against the virus.

Professor Susanne Krüger Kjær, who led the research, explains more in the video below.

The article was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases in March 2024.

2. For our next scientific achievement of 2024, we’re highlighting the discovery of a hitherto unknown protein networks inside the microtubules cilia and centrosomes that has revealed new cellular insights.

Scientists from Danish Cancer Institute, Syddansk Universitet – University of Southern Denmark, and University of Cambridge applied advanced computational analyses, structure predictions, and experimental techniques to dive deep into the microtubules — the structural skeleton of these cellular components.

The findings, published in Nature Portfolio Communications, could have significant implications for the way we use chemotherapy as treatment.

Senior scientist at the DCI Kenneth Schou, who led the research, explains:

‘Several forms of chemotherapy, such as taxanes, work by targeting microtubules. Because microtubules are so widespread in the body not just in cancer cells, the treatment also damages healthy cells, which leads to gross side effects. Therefore, specific targeting of other molecules involved in microtubule-related functions that could lead to the development of treatments are of great interest. For example, by using artificial intelligence-based structural predictions, proteins that bind and regulate microtubules specifically in cancer cells can be predicted and that can pave the way for a next generation of chemotherapy’.”

Danish Cancer Institute - Scientific Achievements in 2024