April 1, 2014
Melanoma is the rarest form of skin cancer, but it’s also the deadliest. Researchers in Australia believe they may have stumbled on a new mechanism for future treatments of the deadly skin cancer, but their ideas will take years to develop. For now, other research indicates viable treatments and preventions could come from natural sources instead.
According to recent research, the new mechanism for killing melanoma cells involves starving them of their fuel—the amino acid glutamine.
While normal cells use glucose for energy to grow and proliferate, cancer cells use glutamine sucked through pumps across their surface. Melanoma cells in particular have more glutamine pumps on their surface, which the researchers found could be blocked,