The malaria protein attaches itself to a carbohydrate which make that the placenta grows quickly but have the same function in tumors. “For decades, scientists have been searching for similarities between the growth of a placenta and a tumor,” said Ali Salanti from University of Copenhagen. Scientists hope that they can begin testing the discovery on humans in the next four years. It must be clarified if the human body can tolerate the doses needed without developing side effects. In animals tests, a such way to attack cancer tissue reduced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumors to about a quarter of their size, got rid of prostate cancer entirely in two of six mice and kept alive five out of six mice that had metastatic bone cancer compared to a control group all of which died.
