From Newsday, Tuesday, May 18, 2004, page A23

"Study: Cancer-fighting technique can kill fat cells"

The Washington Post

A technique similar to one developed to shrink cancerous tumors appears promising for destroying fat cells, new research suggests.

For more than two decades, medical researchers have been developing drugs that target blood vessels supplying blood to tumors as a way to fight various forms of cancer.

Scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston decided to try the same strategy as a possible treatment for obesity.

The researchers first identified a substance, dubbed prohibitin, that homed in on blood vessels supplying fat tissue. They then attached the substance to another agent that causes cells to commit suicide.

When the researchers gave the compound to mice that had become obese from eating a high-fat diet, the animals' body weight returned to normal with in a few weeks, the researches reported in the June issue of the journal Nature Medicine. The drug did not appear to have any significant adverse side effects.

"If even a fraction of what we found in mice relates to human biology, then we are cautiously optimistic that there may be a new way to think about reversing obesity," said Renata Pasqualini, who helped conduct the research.