Researchers have potentially found a way to enhance the effectiveness of leukaemia treatments after discovering that cancer cells ' epigenome – their genetic character – changes when they make themselves into other types of cells to escape drug therapies , a process called transdifferentiation . Applications of this discovery could be avoiding the emergent resistance to cancer treatments with drugs: if we blocked the epigenetic changes identified, leukaemia cells could not select the transdifferentiation strategy to escape from the antitumor effect of the drug, and the therapy would be more effective.” The team said if epigenetic changes were identified and blocked , the cancer cells could not escape drug treatments by avoiding transdifferentiation , potentially making an anti - tumour treatment more efficient . If epigenetic changes by cancer cells were blocked , leukaemia patients could not select the right strategy to escape from the anti - tumour effect of the drug and therapies could be more effective .
Researchers have potentially found a way to enhance the effectiveness of leukaemia treatments after discovering that cancer cells ' epigenome – their genetic character – changes when they make themselves into other types of cells to escape drug therapies , a process called transdifferentiation . The team said if epigenetic changes were identified and blocked , the cancer cells could not escape drug treatments by avoiding transdifferentiation , potentially making an anti - tumour treatment more efficient . If epigenetic changes by cancer cells were blocked , leukaemia patients could not select the right strategy to escape from the anti - tumour effect of the drug and therapies could be more effective .