NEW YORK, Palscience –There are several causes for DNA damage, to mention some, carcinogens (mainly radiation) in the surround environment, errors in DNA replication or glitches in the cellular machinery caused by aging. Many intensive studies have been in the past to try stopping the development of that damaged which ultimately causes the deadly disease “Cancer”.

When damage happens to the DNA the cell either repairs itself, commit suicide or grow uncontrollably, a route leading to cancer. Now, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Cancer have identified a way that cells respond to DNA damage through a process that targets proteins for disposal. The finding points to a new pathway for the development of cancer and suggests a new way of sensitizing cancer cells to treatment, such as Lung, and Prostate cancer.

“One of the major messages of this study is that we have a new pathway that responds to DNA damage,” says Michele Pagano, M.D., the May Ellen and Gerald Jay Ritter Professor of Oncology and Professor of Pathology at NYU School of Medicine, who was recently appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “It is already known that the three major protein players in this pathway are deregulated in human cancers, so deregulation of this pathway is probably going to contribute to tumorigenesis (the development of cancer).”

In addition to the new pathway’s association with cancer, it suggests a potentially new way to sensitize cells to chemotherapy, says Dr. Pagano.