Treating cancer with a heart beat

Meet the scientist

Serena is a mother of two children, Margherita and Giovanni. She travels a lot for work, so when she is  home she likes to care for her kids, their school and sport activities. She loves trail running particularly uphill, the harder the better. And there are nice tracks around the campus where she works, so lunch time a bunch of people meet and go for a run. 

The science

Heart cancer is very rare. Similar to many muscle cells, the adult heart cells are known not to divide, which makes it not surprising that primary heart cancer (cancer that originates in the heart) is very rare. Secondary heart cancer, where cancer cells from other organs travel to the heart through the blood stream, is also very rare. The reason behind this is not clear especially since that blood is constantly flowing into the heart. The mechanical load the heart beating puts on the heart cells could play a role behind cancer cells not growing inside the heart.   

Dr Zacchigna and her team have previously shown that cancer cells implanted into heart tissue in the lab grew much less when they were under a mechanical load.  Now they would like to find the genes associated with the mechanics of the heart beating. Understanding the role of these ‘mechano-sensing’ genes in stopping cancer will provide the basis for a novel cancer therapy based on mechanical stimulation in the heart. 

The team also have an incredible idea to develop a wearable device to mimic the heart beat to mechanically stimulate cancer cells. They hope that this will stop cancer cells from growing. If their idea works, this will offer a brand new way to treat cancer, particularly skin cancer and breast cancer which could be easily reached with a wearable device.