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Malaria Vaccine Provides Hope for a General Cure for Cancer

Danish scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the University of British Columbia (UBC) face a possible breakthrough in the fight against cancer, which may result in a genuine medical treatment for the dreaded disease. The hunt for a weapon to fight malaria in pregnant women has revealed that, expressed in popular terms, armed malaria proteins can kill cancer. The researchers behind the discovery hope to be able to conduct tests on humans within four years. In collaboration with cancer researcher Mads Daugaard from the UBC in Canada, malaria researcher Prof. Ali Salanti from the Faculty of Medical Health and Sciences in Copenhagen, has revealed that the carbohydrate that the malaria parasite attaches itself to in the placenta in pregnant women is identical to a carbohydrate found in cancer cells. In the laboratory, scientists have created the protein hat the malaria parasite uses to adhere to the placenta and added a toxin. This combination of malaria protein and toxin seeks out the cancer cells, is absorbed, the toxin released inside, and then the cancer cells die. This process has been witnessed in cell cultures and in mice with cancer. The discovery has only just been described in an article in the renowned scientific journal Cancer Cell. In collaboration, the two university research groups have tested thousands of samples from brain tumors to leukemias, and a general picture emerges to indicate that the malaria protein is able attack more than 90 percent of all types of tumors. The drug has been tested on mice that were implanted with three types of human tumors. With non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the treated mice tumors were about a quarter the size of the tumors in the control group. With prostate cancer, the tumors disappeared in two of the six treated mice a month after receiving the first dose. With metastatic bone cancer, five out of six of the treated mice were alive after almost eight weeks, compared to none of the mice in a control group. In collaboration with the scientists behind the discovery, the University of Copenhagen has created a biotech company, VAR2pharmaceuticals, which will drive the clinical development forward. The research teams working with Salanti and Daugaard are now working purposefully toward being able to conduct tests on humans. Source: EurekAlert! 10/13/15