"From Extinction to Normalization" KAIST Secures Core Technology for Reversible Colon Cancer Treatment

KAIST announced on the 22nd that Professor Kwanghyun Jo's research team from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has developed a core technology for reversible treatment of colorectal cancer.

The research team developed reversible treatment technology that focuses on restoring colorectal cancer cells to a state similar to normal colon cells without killing the cancer cells.

(From left) Juhee Kim, PhD candidate, Department of Bio and Brain Engineering; Jeongryeol Gong, PhD; Kwanghyun Cho, Professor; Chunkyung Lee, PhD candidate; Hunmin Kim, PhD candidate. Provided by KAIST

All current anticancer treatments commonly focus on killing cancer cells for therapeutic purposes. However, this treatment process can cause side effects such as cancer cells developing resistance leading to relapse or the death of normal cells.

In response, the research team paid attention to the observation that the carcinogenesis process of normal cells reverses the normal cell differentiation trajectory, and based on this, developed a technology to create a digital twin of the gene network for the differentiation trajectory of normal cells.

Furthermore, through simulation analysis, they systematically explored and identified master molecular switches that induce normal cell differentiation, and when applied to colorectal cancer cells, they demonstrated through molecular cell experiments and animal tests that the state of colorectal cancer cells was normalized.

Although phenomenological observations of cancer cell reversibility have been reported, technology development to systematically discover therapeutic targets that can induce cancer cell reversibility had not been achieved.

The research team's achievement is significant as it demonstrates that reversing cancer cells to normal cells is not dependent on accidental phenomenological discoveries but can be systematically approached and achieved by creating and analyzing a digital twin of the cancer cell gene network, representing a core technology development.

The core technology developed in this study is expected to be applied to various cancer types and utilized in the development of reversible cancer therapeutics.

Professor Kwanghyun Jo said, "The fact that cancer cells can be transformed into normal cells is a remarkable phenomenon," adding, "This study is meaningful in that it proves this can be systematically induced."

He continued, "The research team has for the first time proposed the concept of reversible treatment that restores cancer cells to normal cells," and added, "This is the development of core technology that systematically analyzes the differentiation trajectory of normal cells to discover therapeutic targets for cancer reversibility."

Meanwhile, this research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Research Foundation’s mid-career research program and basic research laboratory program. The research results have been transferred to BioRevert Co., Ltd. and will be utilized in the development of reversible cancer therapeutics.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.