This is an article that was written on a very inexpensive drug used to cure all types of Cancer.

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

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

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.

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This is an article that was written on a very inexpensive drug used to cure all types of Cancer.

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

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

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.

You should reed the feedback section of new scientist to see why that wasn't the best written article in the world...

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Team mauisun.org

Why it is a bad article then ? (I can't see the feedback section)

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Why it is a bad article then ? (I can't see the feedback section)

The article in the NewScientist magazine implied that it was a new and current wonder drug, a medical information service (forget which) was inundated with calls by what NewScientist called a 'too good to be true' or 'wonder drug'/

The probelm is DCA has never been tested in humans and is certainly not available to patients. Of course most of the 'implies' comes from the headline (not something NewScientist often do I must say though). don;t forget such a headline will be read by eager cancer patients.

DCA a by product of water chlorination (if I remember correctly) and is a well know water pollutent, so harmfull to the environment (so id it really that cheap ?) At doses far lower than would be needed, it itself is a know carcinogen at least in the tests so far, and possibly toxic as well (again unsure about the toxic part since I running from memory.

So given it's an article propping up hopes of millions, it probably a good idea to state quite clearly the stage of the testing, the draw backs and the chances of it actually working.

There are many 'new cancer' possibilities announced every week though... One resently involving using something involving HIV to battel Cancer (will find link)

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Team mauisun.org

Here's the spill from Canada.

Investigators at the University of Alberta have recently reported that a drug previously used in humans for the treatment of rare disorders of metabolism is also able to cause tumor regression in a number of human cancers growing in animals. This drug, dichloroacetate (DCA) appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells without affecting normal cells, suggesting that it might not have the dramatic side effects of standard chemotherapies.

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Were 100 % of those rats cured ?

I give it a chanche. I also know scientists discover each day new promising target proteins. But why can't cancer be just a mytochondrial disease like they say ?
And Dr Michelakis also gives a reasonable answer why metastasis happens and how DCA can cure it.

Well....the full detailed article is placed in The Cancer Cell magazine but not reachable for me :(

Cancer Cell Magazine

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Science Daily (sub section Cancer) is a good site to keep a look at.

Don't get me wrong about the DCA, I was just refering to the article (original).

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Team mauisun.org

I read that article on NewScientist as well. Found it just a touch wordy, but super interesting. Mind you, I'd have to wonder if there would be any drug interactions or side effects. What I found the most spiffy was that it was from the same school that I went to (left the school, long story, short ending).

I heard something about C.A.S.P.8 on the news the other day. I didn't hear all about it, but curious as to what it's about. Anyone else hear anything about that?

Any way we look at it, everything looks like it's improving so far. Don't know how much was contributed to R@H though, but another two or three years of this, then maybe something else will pop up as a result.

Sorry, babbling... I'm outta here. @:^)

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There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

RE: CASP8, the CASP website doesn't mention it yet. CASP is run every other year. And was last run during 2006. If you'd like to learn about about what CASP is, there were many posts about CASP7 last Summer.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

There are many sources available on Google related to this research. Putting "dichloro acetate" on google gives far more info than that of the "New Scientist". I wasn't implying that it had been found, just that possible protien reagents might result from understanding such interactions (If True) via what were doing here.

I realize that hopes of cancer patients shouldn't be built up falsely. Reporters should be more responsible when reporting on this research.

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On the official homepage (University of Alberta) I've found an article that says 80% of the rats were cured.

If u know the survival rates of cancer, I think this is already a big step forward. The positive to remember is that the clinical trails can skip processes that are already made in the past and that the drug can be much faster on the market.

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The probelm is DCA has never been tested in humans and is certainly not available to patients. Of course most of the 'implies' comes from the headline (not something NewScientist often do I must say though). don;t forget such a headline will be read by eager cancer patients.

While everything you have written is true, faced with a certain death if nothing were done and given that I am quite capable of making informed consent and doing my own due diligence, I would like to have the choice of trying it.

Stephen

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Speaking of cancer cures...

Does anyone know what has become of the effort at Rosetta@Home to find a cure for cancer? I only pay attention to what's happening at Rosetta every once in awhile. But, I've noticed that the last few of David's blogs are all about removing carbon from the atmosphere and finding a cure for HIV. Both worthy goals. But, the search for a cancer cure is especially important to me and I elected to devote my computer time to Rosetta@Home, rather than some other efforts, because finding a cancer cure was one of it's priorities. Does anyone know whether that is that no longer the case and, if so, why?

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Speaking of cancer cures...

Does anyone know what has become of the effort at Rosetta@Home to find a cure for cancer? I only pay attention to what's happening at Rosetta every once in awhile. But, I've noticed that the last few of David's blogs are all about removing carbon from the atmosphere and finding a cure for HIV. Both worthy goals. But, the search for a cancer cure is especially important to me and I elected to devote my computer time to Rosetta@Home, rather than some other efforts, because finding a cancer cure was one of it's priorities. Does anyone know whether that is that no longer the case and, if so, why?

We are very actively working on the two cancer related projects described in the "disease related research" section of the home page:

Cancer: Cancer can be caused by mutations in key genes that disrupt normal cellular control processes. We are developing methods for cutting DNA at specific sites in the genome, and we will be targeting sites that are implicated in cancer. After these sites are cut, they should be repaired by the cell using a second, unmutated copy of the gene and the cell should no longer be cancerous. This is a very specific form of gene therapy that, if successful, will circumvent one the main objections to current gene therapy methods; namely, current methods insert the unmutated copy of a gene randomly into the genome, and if the insertion point happens to be near an oncogene, the gene therapy will cure one disease but cause another. Because our methods will target specific sites instead of random sites, they should avoid this pitfall.

Prostate Cancer: The androgen receptor (AR) binds testosterone and is responsible for normal male development. When the AR becomes hypersensitive to testosterone, prostate cancer is the result. The current treatment for prostate cancer, called "hormone therapy", involves lowering the amount of testosterone available (sometimes by castration). Many malignant tumors are resistant to this therapy, however, so we are applying our protein design methodology to find different ways to inhibit the AR and to treat prostate cancer. Specifically, we are trying to design proteins that will disable the AR even in the presence of testosterone. We are doing this by designing proteins that will prevent the AR from entering the nucleus of the cell (which is where it does its dirty work), and also preventing it from binding DNA and activating tumor-specific genes even if it does get into the nucleus.

In both these areas, we are in the process of experimentally testing the computationally designed proteins; in fact Vanita has just sent the androgen receptor inhibitor designs to collaborators at harvard for further optimization using experimental evolution techniques.

I've been posting on the global warming related ideas because this is a completely new topic and I thought people might be interested, but be assured that the disease related research described on these pages over the past year and a half is going as strong as ever. you will see from the "group members" list at depts.washington.edu/bakerpg that our group is quite large and hence we are able to actively purse a wide range of problems.

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Thank-you David. I'm happy to hear that cancer research continues to be a priority and, most especially, that you are getting some results. I see that you replied to my question on the same day that I posted it. I think it's fairly amazing how responsive you are to us. I belonged to another site for several years which almost never shared what was going on. They seemed to take their network for granted. Not the case here, obviously.

I spent a year at a major cancer research hospital in Texas supporting someone who ultimately died. While I was there I learned that they received over 3,000 *new* cancer patients *every day*, six days per week. 18,000 new patients every week; nearly a million NEW patients every year. And, of course, this is just one hospital and these are only cancer victims for which the standard of care has already failed. It wasn't until then that the scope of the cancer problem really hit home for me. When I returned I searched for a project that was working on a solution to the problem so that I could help make a small difference by contributing my computer time. That's why it's important to me that cancer research is important to Rosetta too.

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My mother in law died recently of lower abdomnal cancer that spread into bone cancer in her hip. She fought well for 14 years with various forms of chemo and expermental drugs. I can only hope that ROH will find a way to figure out how to beat the cancer mutation problem. Also on this front, my wifes friend recently was diagnosed with a cancer node in one breast and had the whole breast removed. So again I hope for her sake ROH will find some models that lead to a breakthrough in cancer treatment.

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That's too bad. My great Aunt just passed away from bone cancer couple of days ago, so my simpathies go out to any family who has to go through that.

Just read an article couple of days ago where a doctor at the University of Alberta called up a pharmacist to stop sellng the cancer treatment to patients. That kind of surprised me, but when I continued to read the article, it stated that it hasn't been tested on humans yet. @:^S

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There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

That's too bad. My great Aunt just passed away from bone cancer couple of days ago, so my simpathies go out to any family who has to go through that.

Just read an article couple of days ago where a doctor at the University of Alberta called up a pharmacist to stop sellng the cancer treatment to patients. That kind of surprised me, but when I continued to read the article, it stated that it hasn't been tested on humans yet. @:^S

If there is a chance, yes a slim one, that this might help for those that are in the last few weeks, why take that away? e.g. My mom passed away earlier this year from cancer - the last couple of months the cancer was in an inoperable state so this perhaps could have helped (and it couldn't have made the pain any worse...).
However I can understand if the cancer is still in the treatable stage that it could well be a bad idea to try this.

my mother in law was part of a few different studies of a experimental treatment that was one shot per day. but her cancer had gotten to a stage that even this treatment couldn't touch it. and with that development she had to withdraw from the study. i believe it was her second program to try, but even though she qualified the results were not what the study was looking for.
this is a tough disease to try and find first being it does not display any symptoms until it is almost to late. hope all the shared computing programs come up with something and our hospital friends find information from those who passed on.

That's too bad. My great Aunt just passed away from bone cancer couple of days ago, so my simpathies go out to any family who has to go through that.

Just read an article couple of days ago where a doctor at the University of Alberta called up a pharmacist to stop sellng the cancer treatment to patients. That kind of surprised me, but when I continued to read the article, it stated that it hasn't been tested on humans yet. @:^S

If there is a chance, yes a slim one, that this might help for those that are in the last few weeks, why take that away? e.g. My mom passed away earlier this year from cancer - the last couple of months the cancer was in an inoperable state so this perhaps could have helped (and it couldn't have made the pain any worse...).
However I can understand if the cancer is still in the treatable stage that it could well be a bad idea to try this.

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http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703210358