Brent Stockwell, a Columbia biology and chemistry professor, has identified a potentially revolutionary new method to selectively kill cancer cells in humans.

Stockwell, working with Columbia postdoctoral researcher Wan Seok Yang, discovered two new molecules called RSL3 and RSL5 that could be used to kill cancerous tumor cells while avoiding the harmful side effects of most existing cancer treatments. The results of Stockwell’s research were published last month in the journal Chemistry & Biology.

“This is potentially very exciting,” Stockwell said. “It’s a whole new way of discovering cancer drugs and is a much more general method to target tumor cells. In ten to fifteen years, maybe this will be the standard way for treating cancer.”

Most cancer drugs do not specifically target tumor cells and instead attack any rapidly proliferating cells. This can lead to a variety of side effects, including nausea, hair loss, and bone marrow repression.

The discovery was a welcome development for Stockwell, who has worked on cancer-related research for several years.

“The problem is, it’s a great idea, but most cancer-causing genes can’t be targeted by small molecules,” Stockwell said. In his research, he aimed to find new molecular approaches that could avoid the unwanted complications of cancer treatment.