http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=21731

Basically there is a chemical called DCA (dichloracetate) which activates the mitochondria in a cancer cell so that is stops producing energy through glycolysis. When the mitochondria reawaken, the cell then dies off. Apparently one of the functions of mitochondria is to kill off the cell if it is not functioning properly.

This chemical is not patented by any corporation, but I couldn't find too much on it in my brief search of the web.

Text of the article is below.

Quote :

"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."

[Edited on January 30, 2007 at 11:05 AM. Reason : fg]

1/30/2007 11:05:03 AM

sounds way too good to be true.

1/30/2007 11:24:38 AM

Quote :

"pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines."

MOTHER FUCKERS...I HATE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES....yeah yeah i know they are a business and are in it for the money but damn...you think they could do a little bit of charity work especially for a cure for cancer

1/30/2007 11:54:02 AM

Quote :

"sounds way too good to be true"

1/30/2007 11:59:33 AM

^^ That's far beyond "a little bit of charity" work.

1/30/2007 12:01:21 PM

Is this what Sam Brownback was all hyped up about?

1/30/2007 1:53:21 PM

this is an awesome story

hell, if i owned a pharma company i would be all on this
sure, they might not make the money in the short but long term dividends could be ...wow

1/30/2007 1:57:09 PM

i mean yeah pharm cos wont work on it but all the cancer research people dont know about this/wont research it? CDC wont? NSF wont? no University is researching this? yeah right

1/30/2007 2:12:22 PM

i read about this.... its promising... but not some sort of guaranteed cure all, and people are pusueing it. There are plenty of charities to step in. and if its as promising as they make it sound some will.

1/30/2007 2:51:43 PM

seems too good to be true

direct link:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html

1/30/2007 2:54:29 PM

I'll believe it when clinical trials back it up.

This is by no means the first "cure for all types of cancer" that a lab has publicized.

1/30/2007 3:01:32 PM

We are long past the days of "silver bullet" technological discoveries.

Just keep that in mind anytime you read something like this.

1/30/2007 3:05:04 PM

what do you think your tax dollars go to ? a pharma company? ahahahahah that's a good one... you think they get to decide what they get to develop using public funds?

1/30/2007 4:04:14 PM

Here is a perspective on this from a surgical oncologist / physican scientist:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php

1/30/2007 4:09:09 PM

this shit sounds like it would be liver toxic, and didn't it cause all sorts of problems in diabetics a couple decades ago? sounds like a bunch of hyped up bullshit being spread all over the internet by people who have an axe to grind with pharmaceutical companies. universities and private endowments would be all over top of this if it truly was the miracle drug they make it out to be.

1/30/2007 9:17:28 PM

Quote :

"sounds way too good to be true."

1/30/2007 9:18:12 PM

so eluesis is an expert on steroids and cancer medications

1/30/2007 9:23:48 PM

^and cattle in FL

1/30/2007 9:27:24 PM

if it were that easy then it would have been done already

1/30/2007 9:27:35 PM

I don't know the first fucking thing about cancer medications, but a lot of chemicals with structural similarities to dichloroacetate wreak havoc on the liver. you don't have to be an expert at anything to be able to use a little common sense about deciphering "too good to be true" articles like these.

1/30/2007 9:29:17 PM

everyone knows that the cure for cancer is sucking on michael jackson's dick. sadly, he'll never share the cure with us again

1/30/2007 11:21:21 PM

guys, one clinical trial can cost millions of dollars. a pharma company (and I work for a generic pharma) can't afford to invest in clinicals just for pure research reasons. that's what universities and non-profits (like scripps or the old Wellcome Foundation) are for.

the NIH would fund this in a hearbeat, however. That's what they're there for, unless it's human embryonic stem cells,

2/2/2007 10:08:37 AM