Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Deer me.. that’s an Elk of a catch
Cell tests may improve survival rate
RESEARCHERS at Queen’s have made a massive breakthrough in the fight against cancer.
The team behind the discovery describe it as a “ground-breaking therapeutic process that can target and kill bowel cancer cells”.
The treatment will be a key tool in tackling the most aggressive form of the illness which conventional treatments have little or no impact on.
The revolutionary technique “may improve survival rates for bowel cancer patients globally”.
Dr Nicholas Forsythe, who led the research along with Professor Sandra Van Schaeybroeck and the late Professor Patrick Johnston, said: “This research focused on an aggressive subgroup of colon HERE’S the skull of an extinct Great Irish Elk which was pulled from Lough Neagh in a fishing net yesterday.
Ardboe fisherman Raymond Mcelroy was pictured alongside his 10,000-year-old catch of the day.
It’s thought Great Irish Elks, which once roamed the loughshore and forested island of Ireland, died out due to the vast size of the antlers.
IA jawbone pulled from the lough in
June 2014 was dated as 14,000 years old by curator Kenneth James at the Ulster Museum.
But Mr Mcelroy’s find was a little more substantial. cancers known as ‘BRAF mutants’. These cancers are not only extremely aggressive but they do not respond well to conventional cancer treatments. “Unfortunately this means patients diagnosed with a BRAF mutant cancer have a very poor prognosis. Our research has identified a cellular process that can be exploited in order to kill these cancer cells. “Essentially, we can take advantage of the aggressive biology of these cancers and use it against them.”
Professor Van Schaeybroeck, added: “This research is good news for bowel cancer patients as further clinical trials investigating the effect of such agents could improve the survival outcome of patients in Northern Ireland and beyond.”