14 DAY TRIAL // According to David J. Bzik, a professor of immunology and microbiology at Dartmouth College in the US, something as simple and as common as cat poop might hold the key to successfully treating cancer in human patients.
More precisely, this brainiac maintains that, according to evidence at hand, it is possible that a microorganism found in cat poop could serve as cancer treatment at some point in the not-so-distant future.
This microorganism is called Toxoplasma gondii. Despite the fact that it very much likes to live in one cat or another's guts, studies have shown that, every once in a while, it infects not just other animals, but humans as well.
In the case of humans, it often happens that infections with Toxoplasma gondii go unnoticed. This is because the immune system is well-equipped to recognize this potential threat, and annihilates the parasite long before it can cause harm.
As detailed by Live Science, it is precisely this strong and fairly rapid immune response to Toxoplasma gondii that researchers wish to use to fight cancer. In a nutshell, efforts are being made to have the immune system target tumors.
“We know that biologically, this parasite has figured out how to stimulate the exact immune responses you want to fight cancer,” Dartmouth College researcher David J. Bzik explains the idea to use Toxoplasma gondii to treat cancer.
Oddly enough, it looks like this theory that a microorganism in cat poop could aid the development of new and better cancer treatments is not pure mumbo jumbo or completely out of touch with reality. On the contrary, it has been confirmed by experiments.
David J. Bzik says that, when exposed to genetically modified Toxoplasma gondii parasites, laboratory mice suffering from a form of skin cancer known as melanoma or from ovarian cancer experienced an improvement in their condition.
Thus, the immunology and microbiology specialist maintains that, thanks to the genetically modified parasites in their body, the rodents witnessed their tumors getting smaller and their overall health condition improved to a considerable extent.
It is believed that the parasites helped treat skin and ovarian cancer in laboratory mice due to the fact that, when inside the rodents' bodies, they triggered the release of a certain type of immune cells dubbed CD8+ T cells. These cells destroyed both the parasite and tumor cells.
Despite the encouraging outcome of this series of experiments, the Dartmouth College scientist and fellow researchers say that it will probably be a while until they are ready to roll out clinical trials involving human patients. Still, they promise to carry on with their work.