Wake Forest University School of Medicine scientists have previously discovered that the obesity drug orlistat can kill cancer cells.

Now, they've found new effects of the drug and are working to design more potent cancer treatments based on such findings.

As recently reported in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology:

"...the drug orlistat (Xenical® or Alli®) binds and interacts with a protein found in tumor cells. The drug blocks the protein's function and causes cell death.

According to Steven Kridel, Ph.D. who started the research project 5 years ago:

"We found that a protein known as fatty acid synthase is expressed at high levels in prostate tumor cells, and is fairly absent in normal cells. High levels of fatty acid synthase correlate with a poor prognosis so it is a great treatment target. This makes an exciting treatment target because theoretically you don't have to worry about harming nearby healthy tissue."

But here's the glitch: orlistat as is cannot be used as a cancer treatment because, even if it can kill cancer cells in the laboratory, in humans, the drug is designed to act only in the digestive tract.

Therefore, the next goal will be the development of an orlistat-like drug that can get into the bloodstream and into tumor site.

Find more details from the full report.

[NSMB article abstract]