US Patent Issued to University of South Florida on Sept. 8 for "Heme overdrive rewires pan-cancer cell metabolism" (Florida Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,728,108, issued on Sept. 8, was assigned to University of South Florida (Tampa, Fla.).

"Heme overdrive rewires pan-cancer cell metabolism" was invented by Rays Hong Yuan Jiang (Tampa, Fla.), Gloria Cruz Ferreira (Tampa, Fla.), Gregory Allen Hunter (Tampa, Fla.) and Swamy Rakesh Adapa (Tampa, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A novel method of treating cancer is presented. In cancer cells, genes are not needed to biosynthesize either early precursor (e.g., ALA, porphobilinogen) or heme end products for survival. Rather, cancer cells require genes for accumulation of heme intermediates (e.g., PPIX) for survival and they only require gene...