Funny-named "ether-a-go-go" has potentially serious impact in development of brain tumor treatments

Huang X, He Y, Dubuc AM, Hashizume R, Zhang W, Reimand J, Yang H, Wang TA, Stehbens SJ, Younger S, Barshow S, Zhu S, Cooper MK, Peacock J, Ramaswamy V, Garzia L, Wu X, Remke M, Forester CM, Kim CC, Weiss WA, James CD, Shuman MA, Bader GD, Mueller S, Taylor MD, Jan YN, Jan LY. EAG2 potassium channel with evolutionarily conserved function as a brain tumor target. Nat Neurosci. 2015 Sep;18(9):1236-46. PMID: 26258683.

From the abstract: "... We found that the EAG2 (Ether-a-go-go 2) potassium channel has an evolutionarily conserved function for promoting brain tumor growth and metastasis ... We identified the FDA-approved antipsychotic drug thioridazine as an EAG2 channel blocker that reduces xenografted MB growth and metastasis, and present a case report of repurposing thioridazine for treating a human patient. Our findings illustrate the potential of targeting ion channels in cancer treatment."