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World Cancer Day

Feb 6, 2025, 16:26

The Babak Lab stands in solidarity with the global community on World Cancer Day

The Babak Lab reshared a post by The Nobel Prize on LinkedIn, adding:

“Honoring the World Cancer Day.

At the Babak Lab, we stand in solidarity with the global community on World Cancer Day that happened on 4th of February, to raise awareness, inspire hope, and celebrate the progress made in the fight against cancer.

We honor the scientists, researchers, and healthcare professionals who have dedicated their lives to this cause. As a drug discovery lab, we are proud to contribute to the cutting-edge research that is transforming lives of patients. Together, we are pushing the boundaries of science to create a future where cancer is no longer a life-threatening disease.

Let’s continue to collaborate, innovate, and strive for breakthroughs that bring us closer to a cancer-free world.”

Quoting The Nobel Prize‘s post:

“On World Cancer Day, we celebrate the research done by chemistry laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, who took click chemistry to a new level.

Click chemistry is a form of simple and reliable chemistry, where reactions occur quickly and unwanted by-products are avoided. To map important but elusive biomolecules on the surface of cells – glycans – Bertozzi developed click reactions that work inside living organisms. Her bio-orthogonal reactions take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.

Bertozzi has continued refining her click reaction so that it works even better in cell environments. In parallel with this, she and many other researchers have also used these reactions to explore how biomolecules interact in cells and to study disease processes.

One area that Bertozzi focuses on is glycans on the surface of tumour cells. Her studies have led to the insight that some glycans appear to protect tumours from the body’s immune system, as they make the immune cells shut down. To block this protective mechanism, Bertozzi and her colleagues have created a new type of biological pharmaceutical. They have joined a glycan-specific antibody to enzymes that break down the glycans on the surface of the tumour cells. This pharmaceutical is now being tested in clinical trials on people with advanced cancer.

Many researchers have also started to develop clickable antibodies that target a range of tumours. Once the antibodies attach to the tumour, a second molecule that clicks to the antibody is injected. For example, this could be a radioisotope that can be used to track tumours using a PET scanner or that can aim a lethal dose of radiation at the cancer cells.”