The Province - Researchers' discovery offers hope for cancer, heart disease miracle drugs

A team of University of Ottawa researchers has solved the mystery of how our bodies adapt to low-oxygen environments, raising the prospect that life-threatening conditions such as cancer, stroke and heart disease could someday be successfully treated using a simple, antibiotic-like drug.

The team’s findings were published Sunday in Nature, the world’s leading scientific journal. The team also collaborated with Dr. Martin Holcik, a research scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and Dr. Arnim Pause, of McGill University’s Cancer Research Centre. Both are experts in protein synthesis and provided feedback and analysis of the University of Ottawa team’s research.