KAIST Develops RNA Therapy to Block Cancer Cachexia, Extends Survival in Mice

For decades, cancer has claimed lives not only through its direct assault but through a secondary betrayal — the body consuming itself in a process called cachexia, which silently undermines treatment and survival in the majority of patients. Researchers at KAIST in South Korea have now traced this wasting to a precise molecular conversation in the brainstem, where a protein released by tumors instructs the body to break down its own muscle and fat. By silencing the receptor that receives this signal, their RNA-based therapy interrupted the cascade entirely — and in mouse studies, the differen