Cancer
Cancer
It is difficult to fathom a situation in which a newly discovered treatment for cancer, which has effectively killed cancer cells in laboratory rats, is not making news. Scientists from Alberta Canada have discovered a new application to the old drug Dichloroacetate (DCA): curing cancer.
The drug has been used on humans for a long time and has already shown to have few significant side effects. Its application to the fight against cancer is particularly novel. You see, cancer grows because cells in a growth are starved of oxygen. They survive by switching to glycolysis to make energy instead. This makes mitochondria within the cell "switch off", making the cells cancerous and "immortal". Thus, the cells continue to replicate and the tumor grows.
That is where DCA comes in. The drug turns the mitochondria in the cancer cells back on, forcing the cell to cease glycolysis and use the mitochondria to make energy. This then forces the oxygen starved cancer cell to wither and die.
While this is certainly not a cure, it is an incredibly novel way of approaching cancer. Instead of chemotherapy, which results in the killing of both healthy and cancerous cells, the process within the cells are attacked, leaving the healthy cells intact.
But you probably haven't heard of DCA have you? It is only being briefly mentioned in a handful of science journals as well as a recent edition of The Economist. The problem is that this drug is so old it is not patented anymore. This makes the drug extremely cheap for cancer victims to obtain. But, lacking a patent means no pharmaceutical company will touch it. A cure for cancer that has few side effects, is safe for humans, and is extremely affordable for everyone is going to instead collect dust and remain unheard of thanks to pharmaceutical profit motivation.
It is difficult to fathom a situation in which a newly discovered treatment for cancer, which has effectively killed cancer cells in laboratory rats, is not making news. Scientists from Alberta Canada have discovered a new application to the old drug Dichloroacetate (DCA): curing cancer.
The drug has been used on humans for a long time and has already shown to have few significant side effects. Its application to the fight against cancer is particularly novel. You see, cancer grows because cells in a growth are starved of oxygen. They survive by switching to glycolysis to make energy instead. This makes mitochondria within the cell "switch off", making the cells cancerous and "immortal". Thus, the cells continue to replicate and the tumor grows.
That is where DCA comes in. The drug turns the mitochondria in the cancer cells back on, forcing the cell to cease glycolysis and use the mitochondria to make energy. This then forces the oxygen starved cancer cell to wither and die.
While this is certainly not a cure, it is an incredibly novel way of approaching cancer. Instead of chemotherapy, which results in the killing of both healthy and cancerous cells, the process within the cells are attacked, leaving the healthy cells intact.
But you probably haven't heard of DCA have you? It is only being briefly mentioned in a handful of science journals as well as a recent edition of The Economist. The problem is that this drug is so old it is not patented anymore. This makes the drug extremely cheap for cancer victims to obtain. But, lacking a patent means no pharmaceutical company will touch it. A cure for cancer that has few side effects, is safe for humans, and is extremely affordable for everyone is going to instead collect dust and remain unheard of thanks to pharmaceutical profit motivation.