Iris Cole interviews Prof. Ido Wolf of Ichilov about the developments in the field of cancer (Walla system!)
Can gold help cure cancer?
Israeli researchers succeeded for the first time in creating a molecule that contains gold and platinum and shows a significant advantage in curing lung cancer, so far only in animals, but this is definitely a first step.
The new research was conducted in the laboratory of Prof. Danny Gibson, together with doctoral student Tomer Babu from the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University, and included collaboration with research laboratories in Israel, Germany, Austria and Italy.
The researchers showed for the first time that they could create a molecule that contains platinum and gold for effective tumor treatment.
The idea to combine platinum and gold stemmed from studies that showed gold has the potential to be an additional cancer treatment.
Today there is one drug based on a gold metal derivative called Auranofin for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Looking for an alternative to chemotherapy
About a third of all those diagnosed with cancer will receive chemotherapy treatment that combines different drugs.
The goal of chemotherapy is to eliminate cancer cells, mainly by damaging their ability to divide.
While chemotherapy has proven very effective in curing a variety of cancers, it has severe side effects, and some patients prefer to stop treatment in the middle.
Today, in the chemotherapy arsenal, there are three drugs based on platinum metal (half of all patients will receive one of them), with the first (Cisplatin) approved for use in 1978 and causing a revolution in cancer treatment.
The most significant example is the increase in testicular cancer survival from 10 to 90 percent.
The main difficulty with these drugs is that they are only given by injection in the hospitals, and the side effects are severe that the patients suffer from such as nausea and vomiting.
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Doctoral student Tomer Babu from the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University (Photo: Shimon Perlstein)
In Prof. Gibson's laboratory, these platinum drugs undergo a chemical change that makes them more stable in the body, which allows them to be taken orally and can save the time of arriving at the hospital and transfusions.
The chemical combination that the researchers created with a gold molecule showed a significant advantage in cancer cells compared to platinum or gold alone, and even a combination of the metals when they are not connected by a chemical bond.
In another experiment they conducted, they were able to show that the combination of the metals increased the chances of survival of mice with lung tumors, and reduced toxicity compared to the control groups.
Although these are heavy metals, the combination of them led to a decrease in the accumulation of platinum and gold in important organs such as the liver and kidneys.
The new discovery leads the promotion of alternative chemotherapy treatments that will be more effective with fewer side effects and patients who will be able to take the drugs at home without having to travel to hospitals.
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