Skin cancer treatment may reverse damage

Scientists may have found a way of repairing the damage done to skin by sunlight.

It could be used to prevent and even reverse skin cancer.

The protein treatment is thought to activate the body's own DNA repair system.

Skin cancer is the most common malignancy among people of western European descent.

High-energy ultraviolet light is thought to damage the DNA inside cells.

But when human skin cells grown in a lab were exposed to the light and treated with the protein interleukin-12 (IL 12) they were less likely to be damaged or die.

The same results of some initial damage and then repair was found in mice which were treated and exposed to UV light.

According to Nature this suggests that IL-12 promotes repair rather than blocks ultraviolet rays like most sunscreens.

Thomas Schwarz of the University of Munster in Germany, a member of the team that carried out the study, says it could be a "very attractive" treatment for sun damage.

The work is also reported in the journal Nature Cell Biology and The Lancet.