By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter

A team of South Korean scientists has found that a well-known anti-diabetic drug ingredient may be used for grappling with the nature’s most-feared killer _ cancer.

The team, led by Prof. Chung Jong-kyeong at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, said Monday that the discovery has big potential.

``We found that a protein named AMPK, a widely-used substance for anti-diabetic medicines such as metformin, has the ability to fight cancer cells,’’ Chung said.

``We discovered the new physiological functions of AMPK by firstly generating an animal model with no AMPK activity,’’ the 44-year-old said.

Chung and his researchers hatched AMPK deprived fruit flies, and found they were prone to abnormal cellular structures or number of genes _ characteristics of cancer.

When Chung’s team artificially activated AMPK in the cancerous cells, all of them restored normal structures from anomalous ones.

``We accidentally uncovered the interconnection between AMPK and cancer in experiments with mutant flies. When we activated the protein in cancerous cells, we confirm the relationship,’’ Chung said.

``All the test results hint AMPK can play a key role in preventing or curing cancer. We expect follow-up research regarding this,’’ he said.

Chung projected the commercial application of AMPK as an anti-cancer drug will not be so far off should the material be used as such.

``AMPK has been in use for a long time. This is different from any newly found substance with which scientists should start from scratch,’’ he said.

Chung applied for an international patent for the medical findings.

The breakthroughs will be printed by Nature, the illustrious peer-reviewed weekly, in June. Before that, the research was featured in its online edition this week.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr