current research on CANCER

Novel research has opened up new light on how to possibly cure this dreaded disease. In order for a cancer to grow it must create blood vessels which can continue to feed its heavy demand for oxygen and other basic nutrients. The process of blood vessel growth is called angiogenesis and is a process which rarely occurs in healthy adults. Scientists hypothesized that by giving a cancer patient angiogenesis inhibitors, the cancer would be forced to stop growing and would eventually self destruct as time goes on. To test this theory, scientists induced cancer in lab rats and then treated them with various angiogenesis inhibitors. The results were astonishing. Most of the rats had a reduction in the size of the tumor and some were totally cured. Scientists and medical professionals rushed to conduct clinical trials. Humans with very severe forms of cancer were given these angiogenesis inhibitors. However, few patients responded to the treatment and the study quickly lost interest in the eyes of those funding and conducting it. The results of these experiments remains mixed. According to some the patients used were already "hopeless" and therefore the medicine never really got a chance to work. Other scientists however disagree and say that the human form of cancer is more complex then in rats and that the cancer is able to produce its own blood vessels which can evade the medication.

Another area of research is to engineer a protein called an antibody and design it to bind to all cells which display cancer proteins. Attached to these antibodies would be small packages of cytotoxic chemicals which would kill the cancer cells. The problem facing scientists with this approach is that since cancer is simply a normal cell gone bad there are no known proteins that are expressed which antibodies could be designed against that wouldn't affect other normal cells. In other words there is no known way to tell an antibody to "go and attach to only cancer cells and leave all other cells alone." Another problem is that to create these antibodies scientists must grow them in rabbits. When these antibodies are injected into humans, the body's own immune system attacks and destroys them before they can reach the cancer cells.

However all scientists and medical professionals agree that taking medications and vitamin supplements to help boost the body's immune system against the cancer is vital for complete recovery and helps to protect against future attacks.