Glaucoma drugs could potentially be repurposed to treat aggressive breast cancer after researchers identified markers linked to response.

Scientists found that several cancers, including breast cancer, melanoma and a type of blood cancer, rely on the same molecule to become aggressive and spread.

Drugs that block the molecule are already used to treat glaucoma and may therefore have potential as cancer treatments.

Researchers also identified markers that could help indicate which patients may respond well to the drugs.

Experts said the findings could help establish which patients may benefit from existing treatments.

Repurposing medicines already shown to be safe could also allow treatments to reach patients faster.

Lead author Victoria Sanz Moreno, professor of cancer cell and metastasis biology at The Institute of Cancer Research in London, said: “Some cancers are particularly aggressive, and once they spread they become very hard to treat.

“Catching these aggressive cancers and preventing their ability to move around the body is really crucial to our mission to keep more people living well with cancer.

“Our research has identified a shared weakness of aggressive cancer cells that could be targeted across many cancer types, wherever they originate in the body.

“We confirmed our findings in aggressive cancers such as breast cancer, melanoma, and a type of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukaemia, but we believe this molecular fingerprint of cancer cells likely to die after treatment applies to many more cancer types.

“It’s reassuring to know that a treatment already exists – a drug currently being used safely in some patients could be adapted to treat these cancers.”

Researchers set out to find markers that could identify which cancers would respond well to drugs blocking ROCK, also known as Rho kinase.

Aggressive cancer cells rely on ROCK as they spread around the body and cause advanced disease that is harder to treat.

The molecule keeps the scaffolding inside cells tense, causing them to contract and become round and generating enough force for cancer cells to squeeze through tissue.

The team, working in the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research, examined data from a drug-sensitivity database to identify which cancer cells responded to ROCK inhibitors.

Breast cancer cells that responded to ROCK inhibitors had a particular gene called E-Cadherin that was not working properly.

In melanoma, responsive cells tended to have a more rounded shape and high activity in a signalling pathway called NFKB.

Acute myeloid leukaemia cells that responded well to ROCK inhibitors had a specific subset of genetic alterations.

Researchers then tested the findings in laboratory tumour samples and mouse studies.

They hope tumour biopsies showing these markers could eventually help identify patients who may respond well to ROCK inhibitors.

Dr Simon Vincent, chief scientific officer at Breast Cancer Now, said: “With around 11,500 women tragically dying from breast cancer every year in the UK, research like this is vital to finding more effective treatment options.

“This study helps to lay the foundation for understanding who among those with certain cancers, including breast cancer, might benefit most from existing drugs. Finding new uses for existing treatments, which we know people can safely take, is easier and faster than developing new cancer drugs from scratch.

“It’s encouraging that these drugs may be especially effective in targeting cancer cells that are more likely to spread and resist treatment.

“While this research is still at an early stage and clinical trials are needed, it’s an important step towards more personalised breast cancer treatments in the future.”

First author Jaume Barcelo, formerly a postdoctoral research fellow at The Institute of Cancer Research in London and now based at Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London, said: “Our study has identified a specific pattern of features that is consistent across many cancer types, and that can be used to match the right patients to this treatment.

“The next stage for this research will be to test how these drugs that inhibit ROCK work in combination with other treatments, to maximise the benefit for patients.

“As ROCK inhibitors are already approved to treat glaucoma, I hope that our findings can be used to progress the drugs into clinical trials to treat cancer in the near future.”

The research was funded by The Institute of Cancer Research, Breast Cancer Now, Barts Cancer Charity, Cancer Research UK, Worldwide Cancer Research and UK Research and Innovation.

Susanna Daniels, chief executive officer of Melanoma Focus, said: “Despite major advances in melanoma treatment over the past decade, too many people still die from the disease each year, and not every patient responds to the treatments currently available.

“Every new discovery improves our understanding of how melanoma grows and survives, bringing us closer to treatments that are more effective, more targeted and have the potential to improve survival.

“While these findings are still at an early stage and will need to be tested in clinical trials, they offer an encouraging direction for future melanoma research and the development of more personalised treatments.”

Women living in socially vulnerable neighbourhoods had a 20 per cent higher risk of death after an ovarian cancer diagnosis, a study found.

Black women also faced a 45 per cent higher risk of death than white women.

Researchers said the combination of being Black and living in a highly vulnerable neighbourhood was linked to a greater risk of death than would be expected from either factor alone.

Francesmary Modugno, professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and senior author, said: “We expected residential context to influence outcomes, but what surprised us was how much stronger the impact was for Black women.

“Our findings suggest that it’s not simply where someone lives. The interaction between a woman’s lived experience and her residential environment may be helping drive these persistent disparities.”

Modugno is part of the Women’s Cancer Research Center, a collaboration between UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and Magee-Womens Research Institute.

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the deadliest form of gynaecological cancer, with around half of patients surviving for five years after diagnosis.

Survival is lower among Black women, with fewer than 40 per cent alive five years after diagnosis.

Differences including age at diagnosis, cancer stage and tumour type explain some of the survival gap, but researchers said a substantial proportion remains unexplained.

Researchers examined whether social determinants of health, including conditions in the communities where patients live, could help explain the remaining difference in outcomes.

The study, carried out with researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, analysed data from 2,544 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer and treated at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The group included 509 Black women and 2,035 white women.

Researchers linked patients’ residential census tracts to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index.

The index measures neighbourhood factors including poverty, housing conditions, transport access, educational attainment and other socioeconomic challenges.

Black women in the study were more likely to live in highly vulnerable neighbourhoods.

However, where women lived did not fully explain the racial difference in survival.

Black women had poorer survival than white women even when they lived in similarly advantaged communities, while being Black and living in a highly vulnerable neighbourhood together was associated with a greater risk of death than expected from either factor alone.

Researchers said the findings could help health systems and cancer services identify women at greater risk and provide additional support.

Possible measures include patient navigation programmes, transport assistance, childcare support and survivorship services to help patients complete treatment and manage the challenges of cancer care.

Rebecca Arend, associate professor of gynaecology oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said: “Our findings reinforce that we must better understand and address the barriers patients face in their communities and ensure that every woman has equitable access to high-quality care.”

Arend, who is also associate director of clinical research at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, added: “Translating research into meaningful improvements in cancer outcomes is only possible through strong collaborations among academic medical centres, researchers and community partners.”

The study builds on research published in 2025 led by Modugno and University of Pittsburgh colleagues using data from UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in western Pennsylvania.

That research also found an association between social vulnerability and ovarian cancer survival.

The latest analysis included a substantially larger group of Black women and examined more closely how residential conditions might contribute to racial inequalities in outcomes.

Researchers said the findings need to be replicated in other parts of the US and among additional racial and ethnic groups to determine how widely they apply.

Future work will examine other social and environmental factors that could affect ovarian cancer survival, including neighbourhood pollution, access to food and community resources.

Researchers hope the findings could lead health systems to develop more targeted support for patients at greatest risk of poor outcomes.

Adding neighbourhood measures such as the Social Vulnerability Index to cancer care planning could help health systems identify women facing barriers to care and connect them with support during treatment.

By Ciara Donlon, founder & CEO of MOSS

A baby is born.

In the first hours of their life, before they have tasted food, before they have felt sunlight, before they have learned the sound of their own name, they are wrapped in a nappy.

That nappy, in most cases, is made from plastic, synthetic polymers, and wood pulp sourced from trees that took decades to grow.

It will be used for two hours. It will sit in landfill for five hundred years plus.

We do this up to eight times a day. For three years. For every baby born.

I have spent the better part of my adult life working with bamboo, not as a founder chasing a trend, but as someone who has watched this material perform under the most demanding conditions imaginable.

Before MOSS, I built THEYA Healthcare, one of Ireland’s first femtech companies, pioneering bamboo-based care for women undergoing breast cancer treatment, backed by clinical trials from UCD (University College Dublin).

When I turned to what came next, the answer was staring at me from every buggy on the street.

We are living through a crisis our children will inherit entirely. Conventional nappies are the third largest single-use plastic item in household waste.

An estimated three hundred million go to landfill every year.

The tree-derived wood pulp in their absorbent cores is responsible for the destruction of one billion trees annually, and the plastic components that make them leak-proof make them essentially indestructible once discarded.

A child who goes through approximately 6,000 nappies in three years generates a legacy of waste that will outlast not just them, but generations to come.

I am not writing this to make parents feel guilty. Parents are doing the very best they can. I am writing this because the industry has not given them a genuine alternative, and I believe that is something we have a responsibility to change.

MOSS was built on one question: what would a nappy look like if it were designed entirely around what was best for the baby’s skin and best for the planet they will grow up in?

The answer was bamboo, and I say that not from instinct, but from evidence.

Through THEYA’s research at University College Dublin, bamboo viscose fibre was tested against cotton across every performance metric that matters for fabric worn against the most sensitive skin.

In antibacterial testing, bamboo resulted in a 97 per cent reduction in tested bacteria. Cotton produced a 0 per cent reduction. In absorbency and breathability testing, bamboo outperformed cotton and all leading competitor products.

When I turned to nappies, manufacturer testing confirmed what the clinical evidence had shown.

MOSS’s bamboo absorption core matches or outperforms conventional wood pulp cores on every performance measure: faster second-cycle absorption, significantly less rewet against the skin, and higher total absorption capacity across every size.

In the MOSS parent product trial: 88 per cent of parents felt their baby was drier, 93 per cent found them softer, 73 per cent reported fewer leaks, and 87 per cent said they would recommend MOSS.

Bamboo is 59 per cent more absorbent than cotton. Ten times more bamboo can be grown per square metre.

It requires no irrigation, no pesticides, no insecticides, no synthetic inputs, while cotton accounts for nearly 30 per cent of global pesticide and insecticide sales and needs 20,000 litres of water to produce a single T-shirt.

Bamboo sequesters five times more carbon per hectare than most trees, regenerates from its own root system without replanting, and harvesting it does not kill the plant.

What that means in practice: a softer material better for the health of the baby’s skin, proven to reduce bacterial load and regulate temperature, is also the most sustainable choice available.

These are not competing priorities. They are the same priority.

We are the only nappy brand in Europe that does not require a single tree to be cut down for production.

MOSS nappies contain no tree-derived pulp, no PFAS, no fragrance, no alcohol, no bleach. They are between 60-100 per cent bamboo.

THEYA Healthcare was recognised by the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards for its work at the intersection of materials science, sustainability, and women’s health.

That recognition mattered less than what it signified: designing for the people the industry had left behind is not a niche. It is the future.

When I turned to nappies, I brought the same lens. Who is being left behind?

Two groups: the baby, whose skin deserves a material free from synthetic chemicals; and the planet, which cannot absorb another generation of single-use plastic waste at current volumes.

MOSS exists for both of them.

I think often about what it means to build something for babies in 2026. These children will live into the 2100s.

The decisions we make in the next decade, about materials, about what we choose to manufacture and what we choose to discard, will shape the world they inherit in ways that are difficult to overstate.

One nappy brand will not solve the climate crisis. But founders have a responsibility to ask harder questions, to look at an industry built on cheap plastic and ask: does it have to be this way?

It does not.

What I found when I went looking was that the sustainable choice was also the better choice for the baby. Bamboo is softer than cotton. More absorbent. Naturally antibacterial, temperature-regulating, and proven to support skin health at a clinical level.

The product that was better for the planet turned out to be better for the child wearing it.

I built MOSS because I believe that the standard of care we offer newborns, in the materials we choose, the ingredients we exclude, should be as considered as every other decision a parent makes.

And because when parents are given a genuine choice, they will make it.

We owe it to them to make that choice available. We owe it, even more, to the children and future generations.

About the author

Ciara Donlon is a multi award-winning entrepreneur with nearly 30 years of experience in corporate strategy, e-commerce, and medical devices.

She is the Founder & CEO of MOSS and the founder of THEYA Healthcare, one of Ireland’s first femtech companies. THEYA’s bamboo fabric research was conducted at University College Dublin in conjunction with four Dublin teaching hospitals. Ciara is a Cartier Women’s Initiative laureate for Europe.

After a decade working in e-commerce in the corporate world, in 2010, Ciara transitioned to entrepreneurship, founding a lingerie business inspired by her interactions with breast cancer survivors, revealing a gap for non-toxic underwear for women undergoing treatment.

This led to Theya Healthcare, where she pioneered bamboo-based post-surgical innovations, backed by clinical research and protected by global patents.

Under her leadership, Theya gained international acclaim for its innovative approach to comfort and safety.

Now, as CEO of MOSS, she is transforming the baby care market, driven by a simple belief: that the everyday essentials of parenthood should give parents genuine peace of mind and protect babies, without compromising their health or the planet.

MOSS publicly launches 5th October 2026. Founding Members can register from 7th September at mossnappies.com