British professor makes ‘thrilling’ breakthrough for cancer that killed his mother

Professor Paul Workman 's mother, Ena , died of a rare bone cancer known as chordoma.

About one in a million people are affected by the condition, which is untreatable.

Workman and his colleagues pinpointed a key protein, known as brachyury, which they realised was crucial to the survival of chordoma cancer cells in a patient’s body.

The discovery caused great excitement among researchers because it suggested a route for attacking chordoma: block the protein brachury and this would damage cancer cells whose growth it was promoting.

Process known as crystallographic fragment screening played a crucial role in highlighting sites where drugs could best latch on to the brachyury protein.

However, Workman stressed that more research was still needed to perfect a drug that would be effective in treating chordoma.

“We need to begin trials in chordoma cell lines first and then in chordomas models in animals before we start trials in humans. That could take five years to complete. Then, hopefully, we will finally be ready to tackle the challenge of chordoma.”.