Making pancreatic cancer cells too acidic to survive

 

Pancreatic cancer blocked by disrupting cellular pH balance (Medical Express) by Sanford Burnham (Prebys Medical Discovery Institute) April 7, 2020

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys have found a new way to kill pancreatic cancer cells by disrupting their pH equilibrium. The study, published in Cancer Discovery, reports how depleting an ion transport protein lowers the pH to a point that compromises pancreatic cancer cell growth.

“Our study suggests that interfering with cellular pH represents a new therapeutic avenue to treat pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers for which there is currently no effective treatment,” says Cosimo Commisso, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Sanford Burnham Prebys’ NCI-designated Cancer Center.’

“A new therapeutic avenue..”? Not exactly (Granted, the SBP scientists have their own unique way of lowering tumor cell pH). Check out this blog entry of mine: Exploiting a vulnerability in some forms of cancer: the Warburg Effect revisited

This particular  blog entry contains a link to a paper by “yours truly” from 2005: PREVENTING METASTASIS AND ACHIEVING ONCOLYSIS IN SOLID TUMORS BY INHIBITING SPECIFIC METALLOPROTEINASES AND MANIPULATING KEY METABOLIC PATHWAYS (Medical Hypotheses & Research, Vol. 2, No. 4, October 2005)

From the abstract section of my paper:

By artfully manipulating key metabolic anaerobic biochemical pathways, it should be possible to increase lactate and block its excretion, resulting in lethal reductions in intracellular pH. Compounds are advanced for accomplishing this as well as helping eradicate non-hypoxic regions of tumors, based on predecessor methods which results in long term remissions in per sons with a host of solid tumor malignancies. A number of measures are also introduced for inducing oncostasis and preventing metastasis.

This approach to effecting tumor cell die-off was dubbed by me “The Metabolic Oncolytic Regimen” and was first bandied about by me in 1989 (My original paper on this was posted online in 1989 followed by a revised spin in 2011).  

Its use by various oncologists in the US and abroad has put many patients with advanced and sometimes end stage metastatic cancer into partial and even full remission

This body of work attracted the attention of various staffers at the Office of Alternative Medicine (later reborn as the NCCAM) including NIH post-doc toxicologist Li-Chuan Chin which resulted in my being funded by the NIH to attend the historic Practice Outcomes Monitoring and Evaluation System (POMES) cancer conference held in Bethesda (in 1996). A few years later the faculty senate and president of a integrative medical school in Sri Lanka (Open International University of CAM) recognized the promise of the MOR by bestowing an honorary MD degree and 2 medals in science on me.

The revised Metabolic Oncolytic Regimen (MOR) is sometimes prescribed by MDs abroad who are also utilizing another of my brainchildren: Donor granulocyte therapy for advanced cancer (NCIM)

© April 2020 by Dr. Anthony G. Payne. All rights reserved.