If supported adequately, this research could offer new tools to improve patients’ quality of life.
There science takes many different paths in an attempt to find effective treatments for the most serious diseases that afflict humanity. From genetics to pharmacology, each branch of scientific research offers a unique contribution in the fight against complex diseases such as cancer. However, they exist lesser-known fields of study which, although they have not yet led to concrete results, present extremely interesting prospects.
Between these, Research on the reversibility of tumors is one of the most promising areas and at the same time less explored. Although funding is scarce and media attention limited, scientists continue to work vigorously to unveil new methods that could revolutionize cancer treatment.
Tumor reversion: a new approach in the fight against cancer
The “tumor reversibility” is a concept that has its roots in the research of the sixties and seventies. Pioneering studies conducted by researchers such as Armin Brown and Robert McKinley have shown that Tumor cells implanted in plant and animal embryos did not progress in malignant tumors. These results paved the way for further investigations into the phenomenon of “tumor reversion”.
The team of the Department of Experimental Medicine of the La Sapienza University of Rome, coordinated by Professor Mariano Bizzarri, is today at the forefront in this field. Recently, they discovered that substances derived from zebrafish and trout eggs can convert human cancer cells from malignant to benign.
The researcher Andrea Pensotti, together with Bizzarri and professor Marta Bertolaso of the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, has summarized more than eighty years of research on tumor reversion and has finally published the first global study on this topic in “Oncology Reports”.
Experiments conducted at the Sapienza Systemic Biology Laboratory showed that tumor cells treated with zebrafish and trout extracts they lose the ability to metastasize and return to a more normal state.
Although lack of funding remains a major obstacle, the future prospect of this research is promising. The Italian team is working to patent a specific mix of substances that could be synthesized biotechnologically and used to complement existing oncological therapies. The goal is not only to achieve cancer reversal, but also to promote “tumor dormancy”, i.e.arrest of tumor growth.
