Scientists at an Israeli biotech company say that they believe they will have a cure for cancer within a year, but experts contacted by Live Science say that’s highly unlikely.
The scientists, from Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. (AEBi), told The Jerusalem Post on Jan. 28 that they “believe [they] will offer, in a year’s time, a complete cure for cancer.” But AEBi has not published its findings; instead, the public learned of the claims in the Jerusalem Post article.
According to the Post, the potential treatment is called “MuTaTo,” or “multitarget toxin.” MuTaTo consists of peptides (short strands of amino acids) developed by the scientists that latch onto multiple sites on a cancer cell at once, according to the Post. By binding to multiple sites on a cancer cell, the treatment doesn’t give the cell enough time to mutate again before another peptide in the same mix, this one toxic to cancer cells, swoops in and eradicates the cancer, the scientists claimed. [7 Odd Things That Raise Your Risk for Cancer (and 1 That Doesn’t)]
The researchers said they have tested their approach in mice in a single exploratory study (but their results are supposedly “consistent and repeatable”), and they hope to begin human clinical trials soon, according to the Post.
The claims left other scientists scratching their heads.
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