Warburg effect and cancer treatment 

Otto Warburg (1883-1970) was a German physiologist. In 1920s, he found that cancer cells use anaerobic respiration, instead of aerobic respiration for normal cells. The phenomenon is called Warburg effect.

For many years, researchers try to find effective cancer treatment through Warburg effect. Apparently, not much success was made clinically.

Today I read a WeChat article about someone arrested for selling fake drugs. His family wrote an article about his story. Growing up in a small village in China, he went to study at the Oxford University. After he got his PhD, he went to teach in Singapore and Hong Kong. In 1998, he went back China to do businesses.

His research area is material science. His father died of cancer. He paid close attention to cancer research. There has been a revival of Warburg’s old ideas in recent years. He read some papers on the effectiveness in cancer treatment of some chemicals that inhibit fermentation, or anaerobic respiration. He combines these several chemicals to make a cocktail drug. Apparently, the cocktail works quite well. Words of mouth draw a large crowd of cancer patients using his cocktail drug. Then he got arrested for selling fake drugs.

My guess is that his cocktail drug is quite effective. Otherwise, no one will feel threatened and he won’t be arrested. If so, why he can be successful while armies of cancer researchers have failed. The original idea is one hundred years old. The recent research papers have been published in top tier journals. Many people must be aware of these research. Why such research have not been turned into drugs, other than his single handed pursuit?

The components of his cocktail are common chemicals, which are very cheap, difficult to patent and difficult to enforce the patents. Drug companies wouldn’t be able to make a big profit from such drugs. So they lack the incentive to engage clinical trials and bring such treatment to the market. However, many people have great incentives to sabotage any effort to bring such treatment to the market.

The issue is circulating now. Let pray for his release from the custody and his drug will benefit many cancer patients.

Reference 

The WeChat article 

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nAhMXtOGlXpi3SKeFG3eEw

Warburg effect 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect_(oncology)