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A research team has developed an anticancer treatment platform that simultaneously targets cancer cells and the surrounding cells that support them while blocking communication between the two.

The paper is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The researchers were led by Professor Yoosoo Yang of the Department of Integrative Biotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), in collaboration with a research team led by Dr. Man Kyu Shim of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).

Tumors do not grow through the activity of cancer cells alone. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and various immune cells gather around cancer cells, forming a complex community known as the tumor microenvironment. These cells communicate by exchanging extracellular vesicles (EVs), tiny packages that carry biological signals between cells.

Through this communication, cancer cells become more aggressive, while surrounding cells help them spread to other organs and resist anticancer treatments. Conventional cancer therapies have primarily focused on directly attacking cancer cells, making it difficult to completely break this vicious cycle of support from surrounding cells.

To address this challenge, the research team focused on epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a cell-surface receptor expressed on cancer cells and upregulated in activated CAFs.

By targeting EGFR, the researchers developed a degrader-antibody conjugate (DAC) that combines an antibody capable of precisely targeting these cells with a drug that selectively degrades cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inside the cells.

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