Drug Cure for Cancer
Holy shit. An article in New Scientist: Cheap, Safe Drug Kills Most Cancers says that there is an existing drug that kills cancer cells, and only cancer cells, in cultures of human cancers, and radically shrinks cancers in lab rats. Apparently, cancer cells are unique in that they don't use their mitochondria, which contain the self-destruct message for the cell, so the cancer cells never die. Dichloroacetate (DCA) works by switching the cancer cell mitochondria back on and thus causing them to shut down and die. And it's apparently been in use for years for certain rare conditions, so it's known to be fairly safe.
The problem? There's no patent on the drug. So no drug company is going to pay for clinical trials. (There's the benevolence of the invisible hand again.) Current efforts to get clinical trials going are focused on charitable and university funding.
Link thanks to matociquala
The problem? There's no patent on the drug. So no drug company is going to pay for clinical trials. (There's the benevolence of the invisible hand again.) Current efforts to get clinical trials going are focused on charitable and university funding.
Link thanks to matociquala