Cure for Cancer found?

[Raph's Girl]

DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer. However, because the compound is not patented, you may never see it on the market as Drug companies can not profit from it.

Check out the CNN interview with one of the scientists.
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/...es_notice.html

It's kinda insane. Cuz there's no patent on the cure there's no profit so it's not gonna be used for public use anytime soon.

[KROW]

"Relatively non-toxic"? That sounds a wee bit dangerous. Quite frankly, I think it's a good thing this drug isn't on the market yet. Drop the adverb and then put a price tag on it.

[RaphistheBest]

WTF??!! God I hate this stupid ass system of the world that if it doesn't make money it isn't worth the time. With all the great results they're getting with lab rats and such you would think that they would already have human trials going on. Even if this drug was close to ending up on the market something crazy would happen because other companies would lose billions of dollars. It's kinda like that episode of the Simpsons were there is a scene in which the smartest people in the world are held capative and one of the people is a woman that figured out how to make gas out of water. An even better comparison would be the movie the Blood Orchid. That movie dealt with that fact that the flower could possibly cure cancer but drug companies wanted the flower destroyed because they would billions of dollars... or something like that. I never watched the entire movie.

[iris]

That reporter is a doofus. If this drug works, it will get to the market with or without Big Pharma's help.

And people find a "cure" for cancer every other day.

Originally Posted by KROW

"Relatively non-toxic"? That sounds a wee bit dangerous. Quite frankly, I think it's a good thing this drug isn't on the market yet. Drop the adverb and then put a price tag on it.

Maybe "relative" to other cancer drugs, which are generally pretty toxic. Think about it... drugs that make your hair fall out can't be very good for you in general, right? Most cancer patients die of malnutrition because the drugs poison the lining of their guts and they can't eat well or absorb the food they do eat.

[Tinuvielsdreams]

unfortunately I have seen the effects of cancer and it's treatments first hand.
The treatments are more horrible then the disease to a certain degree... I hope that they mean"relatively" in the sense we are getting closer to a new treatment that isn't so harsh. Who knows if there is any validity to this report but I hope that one of those every other days it will be true....
I am not going to go into the availabilty and money aspect because it gets me to upset.

[Scandia]

How would it work to cure cancer? Would it directly stop current metastasis of malignant cells and prevent future ones? Would it activate the immune system to take action in some other way? Would it destroy tumors completely? It has been a long long time since I have taken a college level science class.

[Voltron]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...t-cancers.html

I don't know how reliable the source is, but my friend gave it to me a while back.

Basically, it utilizes the different metabolism in cancer cells to kill them off quicker.

I'm no biologist, though. I'd be interested in reading more about the topic, however.


I also think that charities would be able to pool their resources and produce this drug themselves. Take that, big business.

[iris]

Originally Posted by Voltron

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...t-cancers.html

I don't know how reliable the source is, but my friend gave it to me a while back.

Basically, it utilizes the different metabolism in cancer cells to kill them off quicker.

I'm no biologist, though. I'd be interested in reading more about the topic, however.


I also think that charities would be able to pool their resources and produce this drug themselves. Take that, big business.

Exactly, plus governmental research institutions such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US National Institutes of Health are sure to look into this. They fund a lot of research.

I think that's a pretty good description of how it works, Voltron. To get more detailed, we're really getting into metabolic biochemistry. That link is not working right now though.

If you're interested, I think this might be part of the body of published research about DCA that reporter was talking about. I'm kinda bored and this is interesting to me, so I'm gonna take a crack at translating that abstract...

PhDs: The unique metabolic profile of cancer (aerobic glycolysis) might confer apoptosis resistance and be therapeutically targeted.
Translation: Cancer cells and normal cells look alike to the body. Cancer cells also live longer and multiply out of control, interfering with normal cells. Cancer cells might survive better than normal cells because they use the breakdown of sugars, a process that doesn't require oxygen, to get most of their energy. We might be able to use a drug to neutralize that advantage.

PhDs: Compared to normal cells, several human cancers have high mitochondrial membrane potential (DeltaPsim) and low expression of the K+ channel Kv1.5, both contributing to apoptosis resistance.
Translation: The specific difference from the normal cells is in the mitochondria part of the cell. This part of the cell uses oxygen in the process of getting energy from the leftovers of sugar breakdown, from fats, and and from protein.

PhDs: Dichloroacetate (DCA) inhibits mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK), shifts metabolism from glycolysis to glucose oxidation, decreases DeltaPsim, increases mitochondrial H2O2, and activates Kv channels in all cancer, but not normal, cells; DCA upregulates Kv1.5 by an NFAT1-dependent mechanism. DCA induces apoptosis, decreases proliferation, and inhibits tumor growth, without apparent toxicity.
Translation: DCA interferes with the enzyme that was creating the ability of the cancer cells to use sugar breakdown as their primary source of energy. As a result, the cell starts using more oxygen and generating more peroxide (which is toxic) from the oxygen. The differences in the mitochondria that help cancer cells live longer start reverting. Since normal cells don't have those differences anyway, nothing happens to the normal cells. All these effects cause the cancer cells to start dying (perhaps like normal cells would), and reduces the ability of the living cells to multiply, and overall prevents the tumor from growing.

PhDs: Molecular inhibition of PDK2 by siRNA mimics DCA.
Translation: We used a specfic test to make sure that the drug is targeting the exact enzyme that we think it's targeting, and it is.

PhDs: The mitochondria-NFAT-Kv axis and PDK are important therapeutic targets in cancer; the orally available DCA is a promising selective anticancer agent.
Translation: Now that we know about these drug targets, we should look into the possibility of administering DCA to cancer patients in tablet form.

Neato. (Disclaimer: I ain't a metabolic biochemist and I just did that for fun. Yes, that was actually fun to me.)