Posted: May 14, 2011 7:25 am
When was this published?
Nature published this back in May 2010:
Nature published this back in May 2010:
Experimental cancer drug resurfaces
Small clinical trial yields promising results for controversial molecule.
A compound shown to shrink tumours in rats by correcting metabolic oddities found in cancer cells has now been tested in five patients with brain cancer.
The results, published today in Science Translational Medicine, provide clues as to how the drug, a small molecule called dichloroacetate (DCA), works. But it is too soon to say whether it will provide an effective treatment against cancer in humans, says lead author Evangelos Michelakis, a cardiologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
DCA has had a stormy history. In 2007, Michelakis and his colleagues reported that feeding the chemical to rats slowed the growth of tumours without any apparent side effects. They suggested that it might work by stimulating glucose metabolism in energy-producing cellular structures called mitochondria.
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