STOCKHOLM: Scientists in Sweden and Germany have developed a compound that leaves cancer cells unable to “digest” food and produce energy. As a result, these cells starve to death.
The mixture has been successfully tested on mice in initial experiments and is expected to be approved for human clinical trials next year.
The study was led by Stockholm’s renowned Karolinska Institute, which included experts from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany, and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
During this research, they discovered some biomolecules that affect a vital part of the cell, the mitochondria, and prevent it from producing energy for the cell.
It should be noted that mitochondria are also called “cell power plants” because they not only produce energy by “digesting” food molecules but are also essential for the proper functioning of body tissues and organs. Also makes molecules.
Furthermore, mitochondria have their own DNA that is completely different from the rest of the cell. If the mitochondria stop working, the cells will stop digesting food and they will starve to death.
Each healthy cell dies after reaching its specific age, and is replaced by another cell that performs the same function. But cancer cells do not kill themselves but increase their numbers, resulting in the formation of a “cancerous abscess” (tumor) at the affected site, which is almost impossible to cure.
For years, medical experts had the possibility that if the mitochondria in cancer cells were stopped from functioning, the cancerous cells would also die of “starvation.” This will not only prevent the cancer from growing but also possibly eradicate it.
However, there was a major obstacle to believing this possibility: Drugs that target mitochondria are usually very toxic because they attack every cell in their path, whether they are cancerous or not. To treat cancer, drugs (biochemical molecules) must be able to target only cancerous cells, ignoring healthy cells.
German and Swedish scientists have achieved this after years of research.
They have discovered, along with certain biochemicals, the whole system that specifically inhibits the process of protein formation from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in cancerous cells and thus inhibits mitochondria. ۔
The effects of these biochemicals begin to reach the surrounding healthy cells after a while, but by then their intensity has dropped significantly and they have become largely harmless to other cells.
Initial experiments tested these biochemicals on cancerous mice. During these trials, the size of cancerous tumors in mice decreased, and their overall health was not significantly affected.
A recent report in the research journal Nature hopes that the drug will soon be approved for human trials by international organizations.