Lee Jung-weon, a professor at the College of Medicine of Seoul National University, and Park Ki-hun, a professor of applied life sciences at Gyeongsang National University, announced Monday they have developed “TSAHC,” a substance for a new medicine that could suppress TM4SF5, a protein known as a major cause of liver cancer.

Their paper is listed in the online version of “Hepatology,” a world-renowned academic journal on the study of liver, after the research team finished registering patents on TSAHC in Korea and the United States.

“TSAHC has fewer side effects than existing anti-cancer medicine that kills cancer cells, because it selectively suppresses tumor growth and growth of cells in veins that supply nutrition to cancer cells.

“We can expect to generate a great amount of value from the technology that enables mass production of a cancer drug at low cost,” said the team.

(englishnews@chosun.com )