New cancer hope as a pill ‘annihilates all solid tumors’ — thanks to this little girl

Cancer has a powerful new enemy — and it is fueled by a 9-year-old girl with an unforgettable smile.

Researchers have developed a drug containing a molecule called AOH1996 that “appears to annihilate all solid tumors” in preclinical research — while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The drug AOH1996 is named after Anna Olivia Healey, a cancer patient from Indiana who was born in 1996.

“I knew I wanted to do something special for that little girl,” Dr. Linda Malkas of City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., a leading cancer research center, said in a statement received by The Post.

“She died when she was only 9 years old from neuroblastoma, a children’s cancer that affects only 600 kids in America each year.”

Dr. Malkas met Anna’s family just before their little girl died in 2005 after a devastating battle with the cancer that starts in very early forms of nerve cells, most often found in an embryo or fetus, according to the American Cancer Society.

“I met Anna’s father when she was at her end stages … he asked if I could do something about neuroblastoma and he wrote my lab a check for $25,000,” she said. “That was the moment that changed my life — my fork in the road.”

‘We were too late to help Anna, but we could help others like her. I always say when you see me, there’s a small 9-year-old girl sitting on my right shoulder.’

Dr. Linda Malkas of City of Hope

AOH1996 represents the culmination of two decades of research for Dr. Malkas and City of Hope.

The new drug works by targeting a protein called PCNA, or proliferating cell nuclear antigen. PCNA in its mutated form helps cancerous tumors thrive and grow.

“PCNA is uniquely altered in cancer cells, and this fact allowed us to design a drug that targeted only the form of PCNA in cancer cells” while leaving healthy, normal cells untouched, Dr. Malkas, 68, said.

“Our cancer-killing pill is like a snowstorm that closes a key airline hub, shutting down all flights” — but “only in planes carrying cancer cells.”

Their AOH1966 drug is currently in a phase 1 clinical trial at City of Hope. In previous tests, AOH1996 selectively killed cancer cells by successfully disrupting the cell reproductive cycle.

Young Anna’s fatal fight with neuroblastoma was also the inspiration for the A.N.N.A. Fund (Anna Needs Neuroblastoma Answers), a charity that has raised more than $400,000 since 2002 for neuroblastoma research.

“My wife and I thought there was no way to fully thank friends, family and strangers for their outpouring of love and support shown for our daughter. No way until the establishment of A.N.N.A.,” Anna’s dad Steve, 57, wrote on the family’s website, which he operates with her mom, Barb Healey, 56.

“Through awareness and monetary support by people like you, we will be able to pass that same love and concern on to other families in our situation,” he added.

Because AOH1996 killed cancer cells in several cancer cell lines, it offers hope that the drug can someday be used to treat breast, prostate, brain, ovarian, cervical, skin and lung cancers.

“No one has ever targeted PCNA as a therapeutic because it was viewed as ‘undruggable,’ said Dr. Long Gu, associate research professor at City of Hope and lead author of the study, published in Cell Chemical Biology.

“Now that we know the problem area and can inhibit it, we will dig deeper to understand the process to develop more personalized, targeted cancer medicines.”

An added benefit of AOH1996 is its ability to make cancer cells more vulnerable to agents that cause cellular DNA or chromosome damage, such as the chemotherapy drug cisplatin.

That means the new drug could someday be a useful tool in combination therapies, and in the development of new chemotherapeutics.

“We were too late to help Anna, but we could help others like her,” Dr. Malkas said. “I always say when you see me, there’s a small 9-year-old girl sitting on my right shoulder. She’s my touchstone.”