On October 26th, The Times of Israel posted a story about a breakthrough in cancer research that has occurred in Israel.

The article reports:

“Our interim results in a major study of patients with leukemia shows that our system yields the maximum efficiency from chemo, with a minimum of toxicity,” said Dr. Ruth Ben Yakar, CEO of BioSight. “Our method of using chemo does not cause brain damage or weaken blood cells,” with all its attendant phenomena, such as lethargy, loss of hair, etc.

BioSight’s “Trojan horse” chemo technology doesn’t only work for leukemia patients, said Ben Yakar. “We believe it will be effective in many other kinds of cancer as well. It’s a matter of finding the amino acid that a specific cancer is ‘allergic’ to, and packaging it in a structure that the cancer cell thinks contains material that strengthens it, while in reality it contains material that destroys it.”

I am sure everyone reading this has watched someone they love go through the agonies of chemotherapy because that was the only hope of survival. It would be wonderful if this procedure can cure cancer without doing major harm to the patient.

The article further reports:

While further tests are needed, Ben Yakar is very optimistic that the technology – which, she said, could be applied to other cancers as well — will receive recognition as a Breakthrough Therapy, able to treat patients who have no other medical recourse.

“We are excited with the results obtained to date with treatment of AML and ALL patients with Astarabine,” said Ben Yakar. “These patients would have otherwise had very limited treatment options. We are optimistic that Astarabine could bring real hope to many patients and an answer to unmet needs in the treatment of hematologic malignancies.”

This is fantastic news.