The Anticipated Aziz Sancar Study: What Is the Right Timing for Chemotherapy?

Frequently used in cancer treatment, chemotherapy medicines try to destroy tumors by damaging cancer cells’ DNA. However, they also damage healthy cells. Research on when chemotherapy medicines should be administered has recently increased. According to a May 2018 study published by Nobel Prize-winning Turkish Professor Dr. Aziz Sancar and his team, giving cisplatin when DNA repair is most active in healthy cells may improve treatment outcomes. In other words, tailoring treatment to the circadian rhythm may reduce chemotherapy side effects.

- Related Topic: The Revolutionary Cancer Medicine Cisplatin and Its Surprising Story

Cisplatin is a chemotherapy medicine used to treat ovarian, lung, bladder, testicular, and head and neck cancers. By damaging DNA, it disrupts repair in cancer cells and induces their apoptosis(programmed cell death). However, this medicine has many side effects, particularly affecting the liver, kidneys, brain, and nervous system. Researchers are focusing on strategies to reduce the side effects of cisplatin chemotherapy, which is highly effective against cancer but has limitations because of toxicity. Chronotherapyaims to minimize side effects by administering cancer medicines at the correct biological time. Turkish Professor Aziz Sancar, awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has been researching how DNA repair operates with the biological clock.

Related Topics:

• The Research That Earned Aziz Sancar the Nobel Prize: Mechanistic DNA Repair
• One of Aziz Sancar and His Team’s Most Remarkable Discoveries: Circadian Rhythm, Cancer, and Chemotherapy!

Professor Aziz Sancar and his team discovered that DNA repair in the protein-coding parts of genes is most active just before sunrise or sunset.

What Does This Study Tell Us?

• For the first time, DNA repair was mapped 24 hours after a cancer medicine was administered. This research is important for identifying the optimal time to give cisplatin.
• Giving cisplatin when DNA repair is most active in healthy cells may reduce the damage those cells sustain.
• Chronotherapy aims to administer cancer medicines at the right time, maximizing chemotherapy’s effect while minimizing side effects. Until now, chronotherapy research has been largely experimental: doctors gave medicines at different times and compared outcomes. This study is important because it explains chronotherapy together with its genetic basis.

It is important to emphasize that this research was performed in mouse models, whose genetic mechanisms differ. These findings therefore need to be confirmed in humans.

We congratulate our esteemed Professor Dr. Aziz Sancar on this research and wish him continued success.