Source: [url]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971[/url]
Contents:
[quote='newscientist']
New Scientist has received an unprecedented amount of interest in this story from readers. If you would like up-to-date information on any plans for clinical trials of DCA in patients with cancer, or would like to donate towards a fund for such trials, please visit the site set up by the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board. We will also follow events closely and will report any progress as it happens.
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.
[/quote]
yay
I want to believe, but every other week I read a story about a 'cure for cancer'. I won't believe it until it starts going into use and curing people regularly.
Edit: Wow why would you post an article from 07 OP? Obviously it isn't the cure if it has been nearly 2 years since this article was released.
I was expecting Badage Boys.
I like how they dumbed down the concept enough for me to understand it.
Wow.
This sounds awesome.
Yay.
I rate you a clock because this is too late for my mom
Your 2 years to late idiot
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Flaming" - Gurant))[/highlight]
They find a "potential" cure for everything, but it's never in the mainstream media. I do wonder why.
Cancer is a very profitable business for a lot of pharmaceutical companies, so a cheap easy cure is going to be snapped up very quickly by them.
[QUOTE=MisterM;18639554]They find a "potential" cure for everything, but it's never in the mainstream media. I do wonder why.[/QUOTE]
Because the media just wants to scare people about swine flu.
[QUOTE=sebbonaparta;18639174]I want to believe, but every other week I read a story about a 'cure for cancer'. I won't believe it until it starts going into use and curing people regularly.
Edit: Wow why would you post an article from 07 OP? Obviously it isn't the cure if it has been nearly 2 years since this article was released.[/QUOTE]
I agree, there's a different cure for cancer every month these days it seems.
[QUOTE=kikka;18639196]I was expecting Badage Boys.[/QUOTE]
It's been a while, I think that troll has left the building but you never know... :v:
NewScientist, which I subscribe to, tends to exaggerate things. I'm going to wait for some sort of confirmation by another organization.
[QUOTE=jordguitar;18639358]I rate you a clock because this is too late for my mom[/QUOTE]
I feel bad if that really did happen, but I laughed anyways. I'm torn inbetween a heart or a funny but I think I won't give either.
Anyways fuck yeh Alberta
.. I think
[QUOTE=lum1naire;18644266]I feel bad if that really did happen, but I laughed anyways. I'm torn inbetween a heart or a funny but I think I won't give either.
Anyways fuck yeh Alberta
.. I think[/QUOTE]
It did happen you prick
[QUOTE=jordguitar;18639358]I rate you a clock because this is too late for my mom[/QUOTE]
:ohdear:
Guess I no longer have to worry about smoking.
Not that I did anyways.
Um yeah, why is this article from December 2007?
The article is 2 years old. Either DCA is going through clinical testing or they found it wasn't really a cure.
EDIT: Looked it up and it seems that its too expensive to be a viable cure. The problem is that since the drug is not patentable, private investors aren't going to help fund it because they don't get to patent it. Thank your greedy ass buisnessman for the lack of another cancer cure!
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01moss.html?_r=1[/url]
My rat died of liver cancer :frown:
It's a little bit old. I don't think anybody bought into it.
We already have something that will develop into a cure for cancer, media hasn't caught on yet though.
Science Magazine had a huge story.
And we'll never hear about this, ever again
Just like when they cured Blindness in the Mice
yay
Oh wow, Never heard this one before :rolleyes:
[url]http://www.thedcasite.com/[/url]
for up-to-date information
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