While scientist and doctors have been working on finding a cure for cancer almost since the dawn of time, an 8-year-old child may have opened a door to the missing link they have been overlooking.
The Independent has stated that an 8-year-old girl, named Camilla Lisanti’, has made an observation regarding a possible cure for cancer, which has led to a successful lab result. Camilla’s parents both work as cancer researchers at Manchester University. One evening her father asked the young girl how she would cure cancer if she could. Camilla responded by stating something so obvious that it seems to easy to guess; the young girl suggested using antibiotics, “like when I have a sore threat,” Camilla exclaimed.
Her father, Michael and his wife Federica Sotgia, were intrigued by their daughter’s suggestion, and ran trials on several cancer-ridden patients where they used cheap antibiotics. It turns out that the specific antibiotics used destroyed cancerous cells in samples from breast, prostate, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, skin, and brain tumors.
While the cancer cells were destroyed some of the antibiotics were also able to prevent these cells from making energy-providing mitochondria, part of the cells that cancer is prolific in. One of the best parts of the research demonstrates that these cells are being destroyed and prevented from growing, but healthy cells remain unharmed by the antibiotics.
“I thought it was very naïve to think you could cure cancer with antibiotics, but at the end of the day Camilla was right. She usually is right about things,” states Camilla’s father, Michael to the Daily Mail.
Dr. Alan Worsley, Cancer Research UK’s senior scientist did state that antibiotics have been known to have anti cancer results under observation since the 1960s. He went on to clarify to the Independent that, “There’s no indication from this work that these particular antibiotics would kill cancer cells in patients, or what sort of side effects there might be.”
Photo credit: Alamy
