METABOLIC RESEARCH'S STRATEGIC ALLIANCE TO DEVELOP, MARKET AND DISTRIBUTE A NATURAL CANCER DRUG
The company has a strategic alliance with Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals with respect to the development, acquisition, manufacturing, marketing and distribution of nutritional supplements for the immune system support against cancer. To that end, the company intends to acquire an additional license agreement for such non-synthetic cancer-fighting product, a natural beta glucan/lectin combination drug.
Significance of the natural beta glucan/lectin combination drug as a cancer-fighting product:
- The cancer-fighting lectin is a glycoprotein substance of plant origin capable of specific recognition of and binding to carbohydrate moieties of complex glycoconjugates on cancer cells without altering the structure of the glycosy ligands. These lectins can bind to sugar moieties in cancer cell walls or membranes and thereby change the physiology of the membrane to cause agglutination, apoptosis (cell suicide) or other biochemical changes in the cell.
- The beta glucan component, on the other hand, stimulates the body's immune system to target and kill the cancerous cells. The result is the ability to cure certain types of cancers or alternatively, to prevent metastasis and contain the cancer from spreading. With the help of the beta glucan/lectin combination natural drug, certain types of cancers might ultimately be treated as a chronic ailment instead of a fatal disease.
The product utilizes the natural properties of beta glucan and lectin phytochemicals to identify bind with and kill cancer cells and repair damaged cells in the body. The resulting product has the unusual properties of being natural immunostimulatory against cancer, capable of binding to 80% to 90% of all cancer cells and non-toxic to normal cells.
Product Components
A lectin can be defined as a protein decipher of glycocode which specifically binds or cross-links carbohydrates. In more basic terms, it is a naturally occurring protein found in plants, viruses, microorganisms and animals that share the common property of binding or cross-linking to specific sugar structures. One such sugar structure commonly bound by lectins is a glycoconjugate found only on cancer cells.
The product's composition allows it to circulate throughout the body until the lectin identifies and binds with an antigen group of or a specific antigen receptor of the cancer cell. Upon binding with identified cancer cell, the lectin and the beta glucan independently work to accomplish cell killing. The lectin blocks the nuclear localization and uptake sequence and stops proliferation. The beta glucan stimulates the activity of white blood cells (T-cells and Natural Killer [NK] cells) to destroy the cancer cell and phagocytes to remove the damaged cells in the vicinity. Thus the beta glucan and lectin combination has the potential to produce the closest thing to a cancer cure to date. The result would be the ability to cure certain cancers (certainly those 80% to 90% baring the T-antigen) or alternatively, to contain the cancer in situ and prevent metastasis, treating those cancers not cured as a chronic ailment instead of a fatal disease.
Lectin from the common mushroom Agaricus blazei as well as several other medicinal mushrooms has potent antiproliferative effect on human epithelial cancer cells without any apparent cytotoxicity (Lu-Gang Yu, J.Biol Chem 1999). This property confers to it an important therapeutic potential as an antineoplastic agent.
MRI believes this natural lectin can be produced rather inexpensively in large quantities and by utilizing the company's novel metabolic processes of naturally occurring non-vascular organisms. The lectin produced is naturally resistant to heat and digestion and can be detected in active form in feces. Its use as food can be considered equally important as a drug that treats intestinal cancer development. This lectin has demonstrated the ability to bind to the membranes of cancer cells, deprive the cell of its nuclear uptake sequence, stop proliferation and essentially starve the cell to death.
The product contains unique polysaccharide/beta glucan combinations that produce simultaneous immunostimulatory and antigen binding capability. This is done through the twin processes of binding of polysaccharide carbohydrates to fusion polypeptides of the repeating amino acids of lectin hemagluttin on T-antigen exclusively expressed on tumor cells, and the beta-glucan stimulated up regulation of incompetent CR3 receptor on the tumor cell.
T and Tn antigens are specific glycoprotein autoimmunogenic pancarcinoma antigens. These antigens may also be found in neoplastic blood cells (and on LTV-II infected T lymphocytes). In most tumors T and Tn glycoprotein antigens, (whose epitopes have been synthesized) are uncovered and immunoreactive. In all other tissues T and Tn antigens are masked and therefore, not accessible to the immune system; thus carcinomas have antigens that can be recognized as foreign by the patient's immune system. The product addresses these antigens and is therefore potentially a cure for cancer.
In order to specifically identify and kill cancer cells, the product must be constructed to maximize the properties of both the lectin and the beta glucan. The diagram below illustrates the general composition of the product.
The product's composition allows it to circulate throughout the body until the lectin identifies and binds with an antigen group of or a specific antigen receptor of the cancer cell. Upon binding with identified cancer cell, the lectin and the beta glucan independently work to accomplish cell killing. The lectin blocks the nuclear localization and uptake sequence and stops proliferation. The beta glucan stimulates the activity of white blood cells (T-cells and Natural Killer [NK] cells) to destroy the cancer cell and phagocytes to remove the damaged cells in the vicinity. Thus the beta glucan and lectin combination has the potential to produce the closest thing to a cancer cure to date. The result would be the ability to cure certain cancers (certainly those 80% to 90% baring the T-antigen) or alternatively, to contain the cancer in situ and prevent metastasis, treating those cancers not cured as a chronic ailment instead of a fatal disease.
Clinical studies
Scientists from the Pharmacological Department of Tokyo University, National Cancer Center and Tokyo Pharmacology Institute, implanted cancer cells on guinea pigs and fed them the fungi Metabolic Research uses in its strategic alliance with Partners in Science to grow the combination drug. 90% of the test animals were completely cured of cancer and the prevention rate was 99.4%! And, in separate clinical studies carried out by Lanzhou University of Medicine in China, in collaboration with Mie University in Japan, proved that this fungi showed significant results in minimizing radiotherapy and chemotherapy side effects in cancer patients.
The company recently initiated tests on lung cancer to determine the effects of lectin binding capabilities. The tests were successful and the company plans to move into Phase 1 testing in humans by the first quarter of 2008.