When Maréne Landström started studying how cancer cells spread through the body, she hoped her work might one day help men with the most aggressive forms of prostate cancer. Now, decades later, Landström and her team at Umeå University in Sweden have developed a drug that does something remarkable: it stopped both tumor growth and metastasis in experiments.
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting men worldwide. For many patients, the tumor grows slowly and never becomes life-threatening. But for some, the disease turns aggressive, spreading to other parts of the body—primarily the lymph nodes and bones. Once that happens, treatment becomes much harder. Landström, a professor of pathology at Umeå University's Department of Medical Biosciences, wanted to change that reality.
The new drug is what scientists call a fully human antibody—meaning it is built entirely from human proteins, not synthetic or animal materials. That matters because human proteins are less likely to trigger unwanted immune reactions, making the drug more suitable for therapeutic use in people. In preclinical studies, the antibody successfully halted both tumor growth and the spread of aggressive prostate cancer in models of the disease.
The treatment works through a novel mechanism of action that targets a specific signaling pathway cancer cells use to grow and invade other tissues. Because it works differently from existing treatments, researchers believe it may also carry a lower risk of side effects. The findings were published in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, with contributions from international collaborators and drug development experts at the SciLifeLab Drug Discovery and Development Platform.
"This is a promising step forward, but several important stages remain before the treatment can benefit patients," Landström said. Regulatory approval in Europe or the United States will require additional safety studies and clinical trials—a process that typically takes years.
Still, the results mark an important milestone. They show the treatment performs as intended, validating years of research and bringing researchers one step closer to a new option for men whose cancer has stopped responding to standard therapies. Landström's team is already planning to investigate whether the same approach might work against other types of solid tumors, like breast or lung cancer.
"We hope that our work will ultimately contribute to the development of a new cancer drug that can benefit patients," Landström said. For men facing advanced prostate cancer, that hope is worth watching.