Leading Researcher Finds Tumor Cells Could Poison Themselves; Evidence In Colon Cancer Cellular Research Revealed At NFCR Conference At Georgetown University.

BETHESDA, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--Sept. 21, 1998--Columbia University Genetics Professor Dr. Bernard Weinstein announced this week that tumor cells produce both growth factors and high amounts of toxic chemicals that restrain their growth. Dr. Weinstein believes that the limiting factors produced in a tumor cell shields the tumor cells from collapse from the potential imbalance of truly unrestrained growth.

All cells in the body produce "suicide" potions when they become old or damaged irreparably or produce unbalanced signals- it's the body's first line of defense against serious diseases like cancer. But the cancerous cells overwhelm the normal system in numerous ways, including the balancing act that Dr. Weinstein has discovered.

Weinstein, recently stepped down as head of Columbia University Herbert Irving Cancer Center in New York, made the announcement at the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) annual conference in Washington, D.C.

Other researchers at the NFCR conference, world renown molecular and DNA scientists working on the cutting edge of cancer research, were stunned by the announcement. "We have known about homeo-static" (self-balancing), "feedback loops for the healthy systems in the body, but this is the first time that we've seen the same mechanism operating in cancer cells", said Nobel Laureate Aaron Klug, a molecular biologist at Cambridge University, England.

The finding that tumor cells, despite their obvious uncontrolled growth, also generate limiting factors, is a promising lead for pharmaceutical makers in the development of new drugs that could interrupt this natural system of balance. Dr. Weinstein believes that tumor cells become "addicted" to the chemical pathways that generate this balance. If the pathway could be interrupted on the growth factor side, then there could be a window of opportunity to exploit the restricting factors that are also produced at abnormally high levels in tumor cells.

NFCR funds scientists working on the cutting edge of molecular and DNA cancer research. The non-profit foundation, founded 25 years ago by the late adventure capitalist Franklin Salisbury to support the work of Nobel Prize winner, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, (discoverer of Vitamin-C), is credited with raising over $160 million dollars of "seed" support for cancer research at more than 100 universities and research hospitals in 18 countries.