- Last Updated: 7:00 AM, August 5, 2011 - Posted: 2:15 AM,
August 5, 2011 SAN FRANCISCO -- Stanford University researchers
have found a way to target and kill certain kinds of cancer
cells by starving them to death, instead of blasting them with
toxic chemotherapy drugs that can harm normal, healthy cells.
The discovery, which was described in a paper published
yesterday, was studied in a common type of kidney-cancer cell,
but it could apply to other tumors. It would work by turning off
the cancer cells' ability to absorb glucose, which is often the
primary source of energy in rapidly growing tumors. So far,
scientists have found two drugs that could be used this way.
Neither has been tested in humans.