The scientific journal Science has recently published an article elucidating the significant discovery of mass spectrometry that would help accelerate targeted cancer treatment.

The study conducted by Danish researchers at the University of Copenhagen describes the technique of mapping more than one protein at a time when these proteins are repairing the damaged DNA's.

The method has been developed by the German Max-Planck Institute in Munich and can be successfully utilized to accelerate the process of developing better and gentler cancer treatments.

Professor Matthias Mann and Niels Mailand's team have worked in close collaboration at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Protein Research (CPR) to develop the new technique.

Previously, only one protein could be studied at a time. With the advent of mass spectrometry, the researchers can now simultaneously see all the proteins that help to repair the damaged DNA.

Several different proteins are activated when a DNA suffers damage. The nature of the DNA damage affects the type of protein that gets accelerated to mend this damage. Thus, this new technique would enable the researchers to obtain better insights into how and which proteins are helping to repair the DNA.

This can guarantee a more targeted cancer treatment, ensuring that a minimum of healthy cells are damaged during the process of destroying the cancerous cells. So, the unwanted side effect of cancer treatment which induces massive DNA damage can be controlled to a certain extent.

By using this method, Niels Mailand and his research team have discovered that there are two specific and un-described proteins that play an important part in repairing damaged DNA.

Niels Mailand describes," This new method enables us to quickly get an overview of the entire bag of proteins that are important in terms of repairing damaged DNA. In other words, this new technique allows us to put the puzzle together much quicker".