Drug For Tapeworm May Fight Prostate And Colon Cancer

Cancer researchers from the University of Bergen have tested hundreds of known drugs to see how they effects cancer cells. Recently they discovered a substance in medicine used in the treatment of parasites such as tapeworms and giardia preforming like a tailored medicine against colon and prostate cancer. This specific substance appears to block the signalling pathway in cancer cells making them stop growing, says Professor Karl-Henning Kalland of the Department of Clinical Science, at UiB.
The team at Kalland observed that cells in colon and prostate cancer have high levels of activated Beta-catenin, which makes the cells go amuck and divide at a higher tempo, and increases the cancer cells chance of survival by making them more resistant. Experimenting with well known and approved drugs shows that a medicine can have different effects and target different areas in cells. Using this theory the team observed the substance NTZ decomposed the activated Beta-catenin.
NTZ attacks the cancer cells by significantly hindering the activated Beta-catenin. In hindering the process it also seems to appear that it stimulates central parts of the immune system which attacks the cancer cells. The team is currently working on how to strengthen the ongoing immune therapy against prostate cancer by using the mechanisms that the discovered in NTZ, they are in the first phase of clinic trials using immune therapy against prostate cancer.