{"id":212193,"date":"2025-04-23T05:18:36","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T10:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/a-new-druggable-cancer-target-rna-binding-proteins-on-the-cell-surface"},"modified":"2025-04-23T05:18:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T10:18:36","slug":"a-new-druggable-cancer-target-rna-binding-proteins-on-the-cell-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/a-new-druggable-cancer-target-rna-binding-proteins-on-the-cell-surface","title":{"rendered":"A new druggable cancer target: RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-new-druggable-cancer-target-rna-binding-proteins-on-the-cell-surface.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2021, research led by Ryan Flynn, MD, Ph.D., and his mentor, Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., opened a new chapter in biology, characterizing a new kind of player on the cell surface: glycoRNAs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell\/abstract\/S0092-8674(25)00109-6\" target=\"_blank\">Extending this discovery<\/a> recently in <i>Cell<\/i>, Flynn and colleagues showed that glycoRNAs form highly organized clusters with RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface. These clusters appear to regulate communication between cells and their environment.<\/p>\n<p>Now, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41587-025-02648-2\" target=\"_blank\">reporting<\/a> in <i>Nature Biotechnology<\/i>, Flynn\u2019s team in the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital and Dana-Farber\/Boston Children\u2019s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center demonstrate a first application of this newfound biology: fighting cancer.<\/p>\n<p>With collaborators at the Cambridge (UK) Stem Cell Institute, led by Konstantinos Tzelepis, Ph.D., and Maria Eleftheriou, Ph.D., they show that one RNA-binding protein on the cell surface, NPM1, could be a potent, selective target for treating <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/acute+myeloid+leukemia\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">acute myeloid leukemia<\/a> (AML), as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/solid+tumors\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">solid tumors<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2021, research led by Ryan Flynn, MD, Ph.D., and his mentor, Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., opened a new chapter in biology, characterizing a new kind of player on the cell surface: glycoRNAs. Extending this discovery recently in Cell, Flynn and colleagues showed that glycoRNAs form highly organized clusters with RNA-binding proteins on the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}