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Mar 7, 2016

How cancer cells fuel their growth

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

Pretty cool.


Scientists report that amino acids, not sugar, supply most building blocks for cancerous tumor cells. Cancer cells are notorious for their ability to divide uncontrollably and generate hordes of new tumor cells. Most of the fuel consumed by these rapidly proliferating cells is glucose, a type of sugar.

Scientists had believed that most of the cell mass that makes up new cells, including cancer cells, comes from that glucose. However, MIT biologists have now found, to their surprise, that the largest source for new cell material is amino acids, which cells consume in much smaller quantities.

The findings offer a new way to look at cancer cell metabolism, a field of research that scientists hope will yield new drugs that cut off cancer cells’ ability to grow and divide.

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  1. This is NOT a surprise. Beside blocking the glycolysis
    I observed a long time secondary growth pathways.
    The only way to get around this problem beside the eradication of existing cancer cells is inhibition of the cancer stem cells (CSC’s)

    Guy Van Elsacker
    Visiting Prof. University South Florida
    & Moffitt Institute for Cancer Research
    TAMPA — - Florida — USA

    See .»> Linkedin profile
    or http://www.elsacker.org