Compound contains spread of melanoma by 90 percent

New research from Michigan State University has led to the development of a new skin cancer drug with a chemical compound may stop the spread of melanoma by as much as 90 percent.

"It's been a challenge developing small-molecule drugs that can block this gene activity that works as a signaling mechanism known to be important in melanoma progression," said Richard Neubig, MD, PhD, a pharmacology professor and co-author of the study. "Our chemical compound is actually the same one that we've been working on to potentially treat the disease scleroderma, which now we've found works effectively on this type of cancer."

The man-made drug compound attacks a gene's ability to produce RNA molecules and the proteins in melanoma tumors. The compound effectively stopped the spread of melanoma by 85 to 90 percent when developed into a drug tested in the lungs of mice.

"We used intact melanoma cells to screen for our chemical inhibitors," Neubig said. "This allowed us to find compounds that could block anywhere along this pathway. The majority of people die from melanoma because of the disease spreading, our compounds can block cancer migration and potentially increase patient survival."