The research, published today in Nature Chemistry and funded by Cancer Research UK, goes on to show clear links between concentrations of four-stranded quadruplexes and the process of DNA replication, which is pivotal to cell division and production.

By targeting quadruplexes with synthetic molecules that trap and contain these DNA structures – preventing cells from replicating their DNA and consequently blocking cell division – scientists believe it may be possible to halt the runaway cell proliferation at the root of cancer.

“We are seeing links between trapping the quadruplexes with molecules and the ability to stop cells dividing, which is hugely exciting,” said Professor Shankar Balasubramanian from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry and Cambridge Research Institute, whose group produced the research.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a double-shot of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug may offer a clear advantage over older drugs because it delivers more medication with fewer side effects.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients - there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2.

Medical research typically is a cautious, restrained affair—but every once in a while, scientists try out a radical idea. Take this one for example: injecting a live virus into someone with cancer on the off chance that the virus might go ahead and kill some cancer cells.

Nuts? Actually this approach, called viral oncolysis, has been around since at least the 1950s, when West Nile virus, thought harmless at the time, was injected into people with an array of advanced and seemingly hopeless cancers. Some got a little better, some a little worse, but the approach fell away, eclipsed by the promising new field of chemotherapy. Safety concerns related to handling and injecting a live virus were of little import at the moment, at least to scientists. (Those who have seen the 2007 Will Smith film I Am Legend will remember that in that fictional scenario, using a virus to treat cancer didn’t work out so well, a plot that speaks to fears of a virus gone haywire.)

Well, time to pay attention once more—live virus cancer therapy is back . . .