New cancer treatment, very cool!

Most living cells contain procaspase-3, which is a protein which when activated changes into caspase-3 and causes the cell to kill itself (called Programmed Cell Death, apoptosis) but in cancer cells the signaling pathway to procaspase-3 is broken, which allows cancer cells to develop into tumors.

A team from the University of Illinois, NSF and the NIH have found a compound, now called PAC-1 (Procaspase Activating Compound 1) which bypasses the broken pathway and induces apoptosis in cancer cells.