TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Dr. Aziz Sancar’s ‘Circadian Clock’ Against Cancer Invention

TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Dr. Aziz Sancar’s ‘Circadian Clock’ Against Cancer Invention

TÜBA Honorary Member and North Carolina University Biochemistry and Biophysics Department Teaching Staff Member Prof. Dr. Aziz Sancar aims to achieve the elimination of cancer cells by medicating these cells when the DNA repair is at a minimum in the body with his ‘Circadian Clock’ (Rhythmic Clock) study.

Prof. Dr. Sancar explained the subject with the following, ‘Important studies are being done on cancer and I believe that these studies will enable us to solve the cancer mechanism within 10 years. However, being able to figure out how cancer functions does not mean being able to treat it, therefore it is still early to say anything about the treatment. Different mutations are being detected in every type of cancer, therefore even if some of the cancer cells are eliminated it is difficult to control the mutations because cancer is not a single cell type, there are many types of cells and it is necessary to direct the treatment according to these cells.’

What is a circadian clock?
Sancar explained that he had done a study on ''DNA repair'' and continued: 'Most of the medications used in cancer treatment destroy DNA and the DNA repair mechanisms in the body enable those cancer cells to live. We started a study to understand and shed a light on this mechanism. Once we have understood this mechanism we will “inhibit” it and try to make cancer cells die before normal cells. Shedding light on the DNA repair mechanism is very important in terms of cancer treatment. Our efforts are concentrated on explaining this mechanism. By determining the hours in which DNA repair is low we will be able to fight cancer. We have created an important invention on the subject of circadian clocks (daily rhythm) to check DNA repair. During certain times of the day the DNA repair increases and at other times drops to a minimum.

Our goal is to detect when the DNA repair is at the lowest point, medicate the cancer cells and eliminate them. In this context we plan to start this study on cancer of the large intestine. Since we have more information about the biology of the large intestine and DNA repair times we will start our study on this type of cancer. We will start our research study in 2-3 months.’

The circadian clock, sun and skin cancer
Prof. Dr. Aziz Sancar said that the studies on the circadian clock will also be helpful in preventing skin cancer. By these means it will be possible to determine during what hours time spent under the sun will increase and decrease cancer risk’ and continued to explain the studies on this subject: ‘In research we did on mice we observed that that the risk of cancer due to UV exposure in the morning is 5 times higher than the rate we determined for 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In other words we determined that the risk of cancer in mice is less in the evening hours. The results from the mice are completely the opposite in people. Based on this we can say that the morning hours are when the risk of skin cancer is lower for humans. In other words sunbathing in the morning hours is less risky than in the noon and afternoon hours. However in order to be able to state this for sure we need to do some experiments on people. We have started working on this subject and obtained permission from the US department of Health. We have enlisted volunteers for the study to measure the DNA repair on their skin throughout the day.

So the study we will do on the large intestine concerning DNA repair aims to help treat cancer while the study we will do on skin aims to help prevent cancer.’