Research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has opened a new path to stopping uncontrollable tumor growth in cancer.

According to News-Medical, for decades, scientists have attempted to stop cancer by disabling mutant proteins found in tumors. However, many cancers have managed to bypass these interventions and continue to grow.

Now, researchers from UCSF have discovered a new solution involving a protein called MYC.

MYC is a key growth protein that is significantly elevated in 70% of all cancer types.

Scientists at UCSF now believe they can disrupt the production of this protein by targeting another protein called RBM42.

By analyzing genome data from pancreatic cancer patients—one of the deadliest forms of cancer—the researchers found that RBM42 was abundant in cells with high MYC levels. Moreover, the higher the levels of both RBM42 and MYC, the worse the patient’s condition.

In other words, RBM42 drives the production of MYC. Therefore, attacking RBM42 creates a critical checkpoint that helps suppress tumor growth.

The researchers tested this theory by disrupting RBM42 in pancreatic cancer cells and successfully halted the disease with remarkable efficiency, according to their study published in Nature Cell Biology.

"MYC is what we see when a cancer can resist everything we try to do to defeat it. Now, we can see the mechanism that controls MYC levels, and we may finally have a way to stop it," said Professor Davide Ruggero, the study’s lead author.

The researchers believe that targeting the "factory" that produces MYC could have similar effects on many other types of cancer.

This discovery paves the way for developing breakthrough drugs aimed at drug-resistant cancers linked to this dangerous protein.