Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Metabolism drug to treat cancer?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Metabolism drug to treat cancer?

    http://www.newscientist.com/article....ine-news_rss20

    Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

    * 11:58 17 January 2007
    * From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
    * Andy Coghlan

    What makes cancer cells different - and how to kill them

    It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

    It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

    Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

    DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

    Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).

    Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

    Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

    “The results are intriguing because they point to a critical role that mitochondria play:

    they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy,” says Dario Altieri, director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center in Worcester.

    The phenomenon might also explain how secondary cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which can break down the collagen matrix holding cells together. This means abnormal cells can be released and float to other parts of the body, where they seed new tumours.

    DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if it turns out to

    be effective against all cancers. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.

    Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says.

  • #2
    Science
    What?

    Comment


    • #3
      Destroying God's mutation
      In da butt.
      "Do not worry if others do not understand you. Instead worry if you do not understand others." - Confucius
      THE UNDEFEATED SUPERCITIZEN w:4 t:2 l:1 (DON'T ASK!)
      "God is dead" - Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" - God.

      Comment


      • #4
        WTF Pekka!?
        What?

        Comment


        • #5
          I bet many kinds of cancer cells will quickly learn to avoid apoptosis when this drug is applied, but it still sounds very promising. Even if it turns out to be effective only against a few cancer types, it's still great. And no smelly capitalist will get rich from selling the drug
          The enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand.

          Comment


          • #6
            ***Canadians build Cure for Cancer in Edmondton***

            Can't wait for Asher to post!
            "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
            George Orwell

            Comment


            • #7
              BUT WHAT ABOUT INDIA.
              "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
              Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

              Comment


              • #8
                Wouldn't it be funny, if a country we have a problem with comes up with cure for cancer, and they decide to not release it, until we submit to their demands?

                The premise would be 'we'll smash your country into pieces because you can save lives!'
                In da butt.
                "Do not worry if others do not understand you. Instead worry if you do not understand others." - Confucius
                THE UNDEFEATED SUPERCITIZEN w:4 t:2 l:1 (DON'T ASK!)
                "God is dead" - Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" - God.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Nah, we'll just send Tanya to get the secret.
                  With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

                  Steven Weinberg

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X