Researchers Find Potential Cure for Cancer 324
MECC writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer. This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful. From the article: 'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ... The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell. Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'"
Overblown story... (Score:5, Informative)
Its cool they posted my submission (Score:5, Informative)
Not a complaint - an observation.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:5, Informative)
I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. Trust me when I tell you that they are about money first, second, and third.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:4, Informative)
Just a clarification: just because an organization is registered as not-for-profit does not mean it is not in the business of making money. Not-for-profits need just as much income to operate as regular businesses. The primary difference is the after-expenses dollar doesn't go into pockets, it returns to the organization (or funder) to spend it during that fiscal year. However, salaries can still be high and spending can be furious, just like other businesses.
I'm not saying you are wrong about health companies being driven by money, but many people commonly mistake not-for-profits with Mother Theresa, and that is usually false.
Re:It is partially offtopic... (Score:3, Informative)
That's why sarcomas and neuroblastomas (neuron tumors) are rare. They never occur on the mature cell (unable to divide) but rather on the precursors (that can still divide). And you don't have many of these (if any) in an adult organism.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:3, Informative)
I was looking for a comment like this so I wouldn't have to write it myself. Just to add to the notes of caution + hope, the research on cell surface receptiors, signalling molecules, and the like, sounds very promising. A couple of months ago, there was a report on the BBC [bbc.co.uk] about a different "sugar" molecule that is involved in cell signalling during blood vessel growth. Since tumors can't grow without lots of new blood vessels to supply them, this approach can stop them in their tracks. The trick is getting it to work in live people instead of glass lab dishes.
It's also worth pointing out that these are not your father's sugar molecules. You don't find them in a donut. They don't taste sweet. They're huge molecules, generally complexed with proteins, or at least peptides, and they're as critical for the functioning of cells as traffic lights are to the flow of traffic. (If you want to take a look at just how complex, there's nothing better than John Liebler's (sp?) Life of a Cell [studiodaily.com] made for Harvard. It's a flash 8 or above animation.) What this research is trying to find is a way to give cancer cells a turn signal, as it were, and shunt them down a side street to the town dump.
*pessimist* (Score:2, Informative)
Cancer cells mutate at extremely high rates. That's why tumors come back after chemotherapy shrinks them. This approach, if it works (a bigger if than the article made it out to be), isn't going to be immune from that.
From the article: "The double attack triggers cellular suicide, also called apoptosis, in the cancer cells."
Sure, but many cancer cells have already mutated and lost some number of the many genes that cells use to undergo apoptosis. And those cells are the ones that kill a patient.
Defensive? (Score:4, Informative)
For the guy asking about perspective, take a look at the sugars vs. hepatitis article from a couple days ago, where they were working around a patent for treatment to produce a low cost version, while the drug company charged $14,000/yr for treatment. A cure for cancer is worthless to most of the population if it costs a million bucks.