Light-activated switch wakes dormant lung cancer cells for treatment
ETH Zurich researchers built a molecular switch, flipped on by light near a tumor, that strips away the receptors some lung cancer cells use to fall into a protective sleep. In lab tests it woke the dormant cells and left healthy tissue largely untouched.
Some lung cancer cells survive treatment by falling into a stress-hormone-triggered dormant state, barely dividing so that drugs aimed at dividing cells pass them by. Researchers at ETH Zurich developed a light-controlled molecular switch (a photoswitchable PROTAC) that tags the glucocorticoid receptors driving this dormancy for destruction. Activated by a specific wavelength near the tumor, it degrades those receptors and wakes the sleeping cells, making them vulnerable to therapy again while sparing healthy tissue outside the light. The work was published in PNAS. The deeper significance is a shift in strategy: rather than hitting cancer harder, the approach removes the shelter cancer uses to wait out the drugs. For now it remains a laboratory result, tested in cells, not yet in people.