Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

[Martrae]

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.

[Gargamellow]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

[Lueyen]

link?

[Tikker]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

it was discovered by a canadian, not a greedy american, so it'll be free

[Zanchief]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

it was discovered by a canadian, not a greedy american, so it'll be free

So true.

[Evermore]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

it was discovered by a canadian, not a greedy american, so it'll be free

bullshit it was. it was found IN canada, not by a canadian

http://cardiosrv1.uah.ualberta.ca/research/ResFaculty/EMichelakis/EMichelakis.asp?page1.htm

[Zanchief]

So he's a Greek who lives in Canada. Either way, it's not going to be exploited like it would if it was found by a greedy American pharmaceutical company.

Also, it's nice to see that all this talk about capitalism being the strongest motivated for innovation is full of shit too.

[Phlegm]

Dichloroacetate wasn't discovered by him. He is just using it to research on cures for cancer.

[Tossica]

Many of the big Pharm companies are not based in the US.

[Martrae]

link?

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... news_rss20

[Lyion]

Interesting

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/01/ ... chemo.html

Canadian scientists believe they are getting closer to an alternative to chemotherapy, an alternative that would not carry debilitating side-effects such as nausea and extreme fatigue.

Researchers in Alberta said they've discovered an anti-cancer agent that could be put into a powder form and dissolved in a glass of water, and would cost far less than traditional chemotherapy.

Early trials in animals showed promising results, the team reported in this week's issue of the journal Cancer Cell.

The small, non-toxic molecule, known as dichloroacetate, or DCA, shrunk lung, breast and brain tumours in animal and human tissue experiments.

DCA appears to repair damaged mitochondria in cancer cells. In normal cells, the tiny structures normally convert food into energy and trigger cell death.

In cancer cells, the mitochondria do not work properly and the cells do not die, growing out of control.

Until recently, researchers believed mitochondria affected by cancer were permanently damaged, but Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor of medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, questioned the idea experimentally.

DCA did not appear to harm normal cells, his team found.

Since DCA it is already used to treat lactic acid buildup in children and a lack of blood flow to the heart, it could be tested as a cancer therapy in humans immediately, the researchers said.

[Zanchief]

That's right, we rule.

[Tikker]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

it was discovered by a canadian, not a greedy american, so it'll be free

bullshit it was. it was found IN canada, not by a canadian

http://cardiosrv1.uah.ualberta.ca/research/ResFaculty/EMichelakis/EMichelakis.asp?page1.htm

so does that mean you'll stop trying to claim the Atom bomb as an american invention?

[Harrison]

Nationalistic penis envy is really getting old.

[DangerPaul]

Canada makes better beer too... What is the point of the bickering? Canadians are bragging they did something smarter and cheaper than American companies, and the patriotic posters are lashing out?

[Tuggan]

go canada!

[Zanchief]

Nationalistic penis envy is really getting old.

Cause we've never heard that from you~

[Evermore]

it won't be cheap if they find it actually stunts the growth of cancer

it was discovered by a canadian, not a greedy american, so it'll be free

bullshit it was. it was found IN canada, not by a canadian

http://cardiosrv1.uah.ualberta.ca/research/ResFaculty/EMichelakis/EMichelakis.asp?page1.htm

so does that mean you'll stop trying to claim the Atom bomb as an american invention?

no need to "claim". Fact is, it was. J. Robert Oppenheimer is an american and is credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb".


this means you'll stop trying to claim the a bomb as a canadian invention.


I'll give you this, with the exception of Yuengling Lager, canada does make way better beer.

Just for you Tikk, here is a listing of Canadian Inventors I never new Bell was canadian

[Tikker]

Everyone else thinks Edison invented the lightbulb too

[Evermore]

didnt see that either...

amazing what you find when you look.

[Tikker]

it's also amazing sometimes the way nationalistic propaganda can sometimes turn into defacto truth

can probably find examples in every industrialized country where 6 people will invent roughly the same thing at about the same time, and each country will claim it as their own

(telephone is a good example in some ways, Bell was Scottish, lived in canada for his early work, then moved to the states, all 3 countries claim him i think)

[Jay]

Cmon guys, let America Jr. have it's glory. Go you!

[Zanchief]

Yay condescending pity!

[Xaiveir]

You know the Tobacco industry is rooting for this drug to work. Im surprised they havnt jumped yet to be one of their main sponsors for tests.

[Tikker]

I can just see their new slogan


"Buy a carton, free cancer cure coupon inside!"