"Starving" cancer cells of a vital supply route that they use to obtain nutrients could lead to new safer treatments to stop the growth of tumours, a new study has found. Scientists blocked gateways through which the cancer cells were obtaining the amino acid glutamine and found the cells almost completely stopped growing.

"This is likely to work in a wide range of cancers, because it is a very common mechanism in cancer cells," said Stefan Broer from the Australian National University (ANU). "Better still, this should lead to chemotherapy with much less serious side-effects, as normal cells do not use glutamine as a building material," said Broer. "Crucial white blood cells, which current treatments damage, could be spared, and it could cut out the hair loss that chemotherapy causes," he said...............Read more

Source: The Times of India