A cure for cancer? Israeli scientists say they think they found one

[Behind the Aegis]

A small team of Israeli scientists think they might have found the first complete cure for cancer.

“We believe we will offer in a year’s time a complete cure for cancer,” said Dan Aridor, of a new treatment being developed by his company, Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. (AEBi), which was founded in 2000 in the ITEK incubator in the Weizmann Science Park. AEBi developed the SoAP platform, which provides functional leads to very difficult targets.

“Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market,” Aridor said. “Our solution will be both generic and personal.”

It sounds fantastical, especially considering that an estimated 18.1 million new cancer cases are diagnosed worldwide each year, according to reports by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Further, every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death (second only to cardiovascular disease).

Aridor, chairman of the board of AEBi and CEO Dr. Ilan Morad, say their treatment, which they call MuTaTo (multi-target toxin) is essentially on the scale of a cancer antibiotic – a disruption technology of the highest order.

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Oh, I hope this comes to pass!! Please!

[DFW]

1. Sooner or later, this will be my foremost concern

My wife had already been stricken with cancer twice, and beat it twice. Both my parents and ALL their siblings had it and died from it. With me, it's not "if" but "when."

I'm not going to start jumping for joy yet, as nothing like this seems to have been anything close to reality yet, but I keep giving whatever I can to cancer research in the hope that it some day will be.

[Oppaloopa]

2. Do they have National Health care?

[brooklynite]

6. Yes and no...

Health care is recognized as a national right, but it's not provided but the Government. Citizens are required to obtain coverage from one of four private but not-pro-profit organizations.

[DFW]

7. No such thing here in Germany

Germany has a complicated patchwork system of health insurance that covers about 99% of the population. My wife fell through the cracks when she took early retirement at age 60, and I paid for her health insurance (about $500 a month) until she turned 65, when the German equivalent of Medicare kicked in. Although I pay full German income taxes as a resident (in some cases, they want double taxation, and don't care about the double taxation treaty), I get zero in the way of health care, pension, etc.

[Kurt V.]

3. i share your hope. the administration of treatments is a problem as well.

my sister- in- law died at age 46 from cancer. the administration of her treatments (where, when, how) and conflicting diagnosis was horrible to say the least .

[Mr. Quackers]

4. Sounds like the background story for a zombie movie

[woundedkarma]

5. What journal did they publish in?

I don't see anything about publishing in a journal, any studies, etc

They're calling it a MuTaTo? Potato? Mutato? lol

"a disruption technology of the highest order"

That's what all CEOs say when they're bullshitting people.

Sounds to me like they're just hoping to sucker in some investment.

Mostly, I simply can't find anything about them. There's no info.

The last time either of the two scientists published was 2002.

They are splattered on a million news sites today. Which is just what you'd want if you need funding. Make big claims, get all over the news. Hope for morons.

I want a cure for cancer as much as everyone else but this wasn't worth posting.

[watoos]

8. Maybe Bill Gates will buy out the cure,

and then shelve it for himself and his close friends? We're not going to control our population if we cure cancer.

Yes, I am a cancer survivor, a cynical one.

[Blues Heron]

9. "will last a duration of a few weeks "

Maybe a translation issue here, but that sounds like a therapy not a cure.

[Native]

13. They're talking about treatment time...

comparing it to taking medicine for a lifetime (as with HIV)

[Blues Heron]

15. thanks, hope it works

[Hoyt]

10. Have heard such cures before, but hard not to be optimistic for what could be the biggest "cure,"

or effective treatment since polio vaccine and antibiotics.

I'm with you.

[volstork]

11. I'm skeptical.

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is...

[BadgerKid]

16. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof

DNA damage has multiple faces so I'm skeptical at their claim, especially if it's a cure-all.

[volstork]

20. Exactly.

Cancer is not a single disease, it is multiple disease processes with the common denominator of unchecked cell growth. A panacea seems unlikely.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Never understood why a presidential candidate doesn't

Run on "my priority will be to eradicate cancer or Alzheimer's"
Less billion dollar bombs and fighter jets...shift money to research and to train future researchers.

[still_one]

14. To some degree Biden may just be doing that because of his son. In the sevnties Nixon and the

the Congress did have a bills passed what was termed "the war on cancer"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

17. True. I brought this idea up to a wingnut friend

(99% of the people where I live now) - the idea of making fewer bombs & fighter jets and having a president declare war on cancer.

She and her husband has just hosted a big fund raiser for a 3 yr old child with bone cancer but said "oh no we couldn't do that -- there are way too many bad people out there trying to get us."

[still_one]

19. ah geez, they sure have drank the kool-aid

[Wounded Bear]

18. Color me skeptical, if a bit hopeful...

Being in my 60's, I've heard many declarations of this type.

Thing is, IIRC cancer is more of a complex of diseases, not a single disease. The genetic angle seems to be important, since it is known to follow families, and since cell growth is a factor. The chances that a treatment will work for one cancer and not another is high.