To starve a tumor
Since the 1920s, scientists have known that cancer cells generate energy differently than normal cells, a phenomenon dubbed the “Warburg effect” after its discoverer, German biochemist Otto Warburg. However, the field of cancer-cell metabolism has been largely ignored since the 1970s, when researchers flocked to study newly discovered cancer-causing genes.Now a new generation of researchers is setting its sights on cancer cells’ bizarre and seemingly inefficient metabolism, which appears to be tightly linked to many of the genes already implicated in cancer. Recent discoveries suggest that cancer cells genetically reprogram their energy-generating pathways to create the building blocks they need to grow and divide out of control, wasting a great deal of energy in the process. Potential drugs that block this pathway could offer a new way to treat a range of cancers, says Matthew Vander Heiden, assistant professor of biology and member of the David H. Koch Institute for...