Dr. Emanuel B. Schoenbach, associate professor of preventive medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School, told a news conference during the week-end that a compound, known as citrovorum factor, which helps cancer cells to starve themselves, has been found and may turn out to be a significant weapon in the fight against many forms of cancer, including leukemia.
The work of Dr. Schoenbach and two other scientists–Drs. Ezra Greenspan and Jacob Colsky–is outlined in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report relates that several years ago, it was determined that folic acid, a vitamin, plays a big role in the growth of cancer and that malignant cells appeared to wither and die when their supply of this vitamin was cut off.
With the aid of funds supplied by the American Cancer Society, the three Johns Hopkins scientists set about trying to find a means whereby a synthetic compound would attack only malignant cells. Their discovery was the citrovorum compound.
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