A new cancer drug named after a brave little girl with a captivating smile has been found in preclinical research to destroy solid tumors while leaving healthy cells intact. The drug contains a molecule called AOH1996, named after Anna Olivia Healey, who was born in 1996, and was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that starts in nerve cells.

According to the New York Post, Healy died when she was only nine years old from the childhood cancer that affects approximately 600 kids each year. Linda Malkas, a leading cancer researcher at City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S., met Anna’s family when she was in her end stages. Her father donated $25,000 to Malkas’s lab to help find a cure for neuroblastoma.

“That was the moment that changed my life — my fork in the road,” Malkas said. AOH1996, the result of two decades of research for Malkas and City of Hope, works by targeting a protein called PCNA, or proliferating cell nuclear antigen. This antigen in its mutated form helps cancer tumors thrive.

Malkas explains that PCNA is altered in cancer cells and this fact allowed her team to develop a drug designed to target only the form of PCNA in cancer cells. “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,” she explained.

The AOH1996 drug is undergoing a Phase 1 clinical trial at City of Hope. In previous tests, AOH1996 killed select cancer cells by disrupting the cell reproductive cycle. Because the drug killed cancer cells in several lines of cancer it offers hope that AOH1996 maybe used in the future to treat breast, prostate, brain, ovarian, cervical, skin and lung cancers, says the Post.

“No one has ever targeted PCNA as a therapeutic because it was viewed as ‘undruggable,’” said Long Gu, associate research professor in the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and the lead author of the study that was published in Chemical Cell Biology.

According to  PR Newswire, Gu said:  “We discovered that PCNA is one of the potential causes of increased nucleic acid replication errors in cancer cells. 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.”

The new drug also appears to make cancer cells more susceptible to chemical agents that cause DNA or chromosome damage, such as the chemotherapy drug cisplatin, which means that AOH1996 could become a useful tool in combination therapies as well as for the development of new chemotherapy drugs.

“City of Hope has world leaders in cancer research. They also have the infrastructure to drive translational drug discovery from the laboratory into the clinic for patients in need,” said Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, study co-author and a distinguish professor at Translational Genomics Research Institute, part of City of Hope.

As the next step, researchers will examine the mechanism of action to further improve the ongoing clinical trial in humans.

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