A small company in Israel issued a press release saying they’re going to cure cancer within a year. A huge amount of the news media bit hard and ran with the story. When you look closer, you will find it isn't true.
The claim comes from the a company called AEBi, or Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. which is part of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehevot Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, the chairman of the board of AEBi, Dr. Ilan Morad, says “Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market," he said, “Our solution will be both generic and personal."
Read MoreThere is good reason Dr. Neel is critical. It is not just the scientifically questionable claims of possible cures, but over the years cancer researchers have seen scientifically sound treatments that appeared to hold promise never live up to hopes for a cure. For example in 1998 medical news exploded on every television network newscast and news magazine of a possible cure using a technique that cut off the blood supply to the cancer. The antiangiogenesis treatment, which had only been tested in animals, would lead to a cure for cancer in five years, a Nobel prize winner told the New York Times. Antiangiogenesis is today an important treatment for cancer, but not a cure.
And it is also worth looking at the source for this claim. It doesn’t come from a researcher who has presented results at a meeting or published a study that have been discussed and examined by other doctors. It comes from a company with a financial interest in generating excitement. In a 2017 article titled “Cancer treatment hype gives false hope to many patients” Kaiser Health News veteran science writer Liz Szabo noted “hyping early scientific results based on lab tests or animal studies can attract investors that allow researchers to continue their work. Positive results can lead biotech firms to be bought out by larger drug companies.”
Now let’s explain a little bit of the theory. Here’s how the company explains it in the newspaper story. The theory is based on a technology which involves the introduction of DNA coding for a protein, such as an antibody, into a virus. That protein is then displayed on the surface of the virus. Once the virus is displaying an antibody, researchers can use these protein-displaying virus to screen for interactions with other proteins, DNA sequences and small molecules.
But the company isn’t using antibodies. “AEBi is doing something similar but with peptides, compounds of two or more amino acids linked in a chain,” Morad says. These peptides, he says, have several advantages over antibodies, including that they are smaller, cheaper, and easier to produce and regulate. To get started, Morad said, they had to identify why other cancer-killing drugs and treatments don't work or eventually fail. Then, they found a way to counter that effect.”
“For starters, most anti-cancer drugs attack a specific target on or in the cancer cell, he explained. Inhibiting the target usually affects a physiological pathway that promotes cancer. Mutations in the targets or downstream in their physiological pathways could make the targets not relevant to the cancer nature of the cell, and hence the drug attacking it is rendered ineffective.” Morad says in contrast his compound is using a combination of several cancer-targeting peptides for each cancer cell at the same time, combined with a strong peptide toxin that would kill cancer cells specifically. Morad says by using at least three targeting peptides on the same structure with a strong toxin, “we made sure that the treatment will not be affected by mutations; cancer cells can mutate in such a way that targeted receptors are dropped by the cancer.'”
Morad suggests. that what his company has developed is different and more effective. But Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society wrote in his blog that “my colleagues here at American Cancer Society tell me phage or peptide display techniques, while very powerful research tools for selecting high affinity binders, have had a difficult road as potential drugs.” Lichtenfeld said “if this group is just beginning clinical trials, they may well have some difficult experiments ahead.” His overall take on the claim by the company: “We must be aware that this is far from proven as an effective treatment for people with cancer, let alone a cure.”
Even if the treatment showed promise in early studies it would be years before it would be ready for approval by the FDA. “Before a drug can be tested in people, the drug company or sponsor performs laboratory and animal tests to discover how the drug works and whether it’s likely to be safe and work well in humans, ” the FDA website says “Next, a series of tests in people is begun to determine whether the drug is safe when used to treat a disease and whether it provides a real health benefit.” One estimate puts the time from submission to the FDA of a new drug application to final approval at 7 years.
One final point. Every day SurvivorNet looks at what leading national news organizations are reporting in cancer. All regularly cover medicine and have experienced medical reporters. These organizations include: The New York Times, Reuters, AP, STAT, CNN, NPR, NBC News, CBS News, Kaiser Health. As of this writing, not one of them has reported on the prediction by the Israeli company.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.