Everyone on the planet has been affected by cancer in some way. With one in three people being diagnosed at some point in their lives, it touches every part of life, and the need to find a cure is greater than ever.
Since 1970, it’s estimated that over $90 billion has been spent on researching a cure for cancer. One man who has been very important in cancer research is Dr Zheng Cui. Born in China, Dr Cui currently works as an Associate professor of Pathology – aka Tumour Biology – at Wake Forest in North Carolina.
While there are thousands of researchers who have worked in cancer research, Dr Cui is unique in his approach to oncology, as he discovered a mouse that was resistant to cancer.
In 1999, during a cancer trial on mice, it was discovered that one mouse was immune to being injected with cancer cells. They tried to inject the mouse with cancer cells again, but no matter how often they did it, the mouse did not contract the disease.
As a result of this astonishing discovery, Dr Cui decided to breed from this mouse, in the hope of creating more cancer immune mice. He was successful, thus creating lots of mice who did not pick up cancer when having it injected into them.
Dr Cui then experimented by injecting white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice into non-resistant mice, who already had cancer. Their tumours shrunk, and the cancer disappeared.
Dr Cui subsequently came to the conclusion that, if some mice are immune to cancer, then some humans might be too.
This was controversial in the cancer biology community, as scientists questioned his ideology.
Irrespective of the controversy, he published his findings in 2003, and then subsequently published a series of other papers outlining the significance of these cancer-resistant mice.
In 2011, Dr Cui published a study showing how leukocytes (white blood cells) have various potential cancer killing qualities, which could have a huge impact on cancer research worldwide.
Dr Cui then went on to invent Leukocyte Infusion Therapy technique, a treatment for Bone Marrow cancer.
Dr Cui currently works for LIfT Biosciences, a BioTech company that is working on the World’s first Cell Bank of Cancer Killing Granulocytes, with an initial focus on using them to cure Pancreatic cancer.
The company aims to demonstrate by 2021 that they have a cure, using LIfT and Cui’s expertise to do so.
Click here to learn more about LIfT Biosciences.
