(Photo : Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News)
Most probably the last thing you want to talk about with children is cancer. In fact, it may never be considered at all unless it’s absolutely necessary. However, two parents decided to do just that and surprisingly discovered what could be a promising solution to cancer.
The Lisanti couple knows cancer a lot. Michael and Federica are both researchers for cancer treatment. Expectedly they talk about the disease routinely even during mealtimes.
One dinnertime, the father asked his child, out of curiosity, how she’s planning to cure cancer. Nonchalantly, Camilla, the 8-year-old smart active kid that can speak two languages, confidently responded that she’d treat it the way they do with a sore throat: antibiotics.
Now, it’s so easy for anyone to dismiss the idea and even laugh at it. The staples for cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation are so far-fetched from antibiotics, and even they are not effective at all times.
But she also has an incredible set of parents who, instead of ignoring her comment, decided to put her advice to an experiment. Her dad applied an antibiotic cream on a facial growth and learned that the cream actually worked!
As to how this relates to cancer, it’s simple: all cells have mitochondria, commonly referred to as the cell’s powerhouse. Based on the research of the couple, the mother cells, the source of cancer tumors, are loaded with mitochondria. On the other hand, a number of antibiotics prevent cells from creating mitochondria.
Testing the antibiotics further in Federica’s lab in Manchester University, the couple realized that these medications may be effective in fighting more than 5 of the most common and deadliest cancers including brain, lung, and breast. If these are harnessed, antibiotics will become a significantly chapter alternative to current cancer treatment. They can also increase survival rate as healthy cells are left unharmed.
The couple is now raising funds to test the theory on breast cancer patients.
