A scientist has been hunting hedgehog proteins to effectively prevent uncontrolled cancer cell growth in the human body and develop a therapy that can kill the disease without negatively affecting the patient. Hedgehogs are proteins that help the human body manage the development of cells.

Hedgehogs commonly shut down when a person reaches maturity but could turn back on because of the presence of cancer. In people suffering from prostate, pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer, hedgehogs could force uncontrolled cell growth.

Brian Callahan, an assistant professor of biological chemistry at Binghamton University in New York, has studied zinc and phenylarsine oxide and its link with hedgehogs, and he found that the two substances can block hedgehog reception and turn off the protein. The substances effectively prevented inactive hedgehogs from being biologically active and causing malignancies.

However, a medicine hasn’t been discovered. The studies, funded by the US Department of Defence, provide “a proof of concept," Callahan said. He added that with a small molecule, hedgehog can be prevented from functioning.

“We think they bind a little differently,” he said. “The arsenic seems to bind more tightly; it seems to be much more potent."

Callahan will be conducting further experiments to analyse 80,000 or so compounds to find molecules that can disrupt the functions of hedgehogs without causing side effects. Experiments will be conducted in laboratory animals, possibly in 2017, Callahan said.

"We want to get to molecularly targeted therapy," he said. Callahan noted that he aims to develop a therapy that will effectively kill the cancer, not the patient.

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