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Warburg met zijn theorie over kanker toch gelijk?
German scientist Otto H. Warburg's theory
on the origin of cancer earned him the Nobel Prize in 1931, but the biochemical basis for
his theory remained elusive. His theory that cancer starts from irreversible injury
to cellular respiration eventually fell out of favor amid research pointing to genomic
mutations as the cause of uncontrolled cell growth. Seventy-eight years after Warburg
received science's highest honor, researchers from Boston College and Washington
University School of Medicine report new evidence in support of the original Warburg
Theory of Cancer. A descendant of German aristocrats, World War I cavalry officer and
pioneering biochemist, Warburg first proposed in 1924 that the prime cause of cancer was
injury to a cell caused by impairment to a cell's power plant – or energy metabolism
– found in its mitochondria.
In contrast to healthy cells, which generate energy by the oxidative breakdown of a simple
acid within the mitochondria, tumors and cancer cells generate energy through the
non-oxidative breakdown of glucose, a process called glycolysis. Indeed, glycolysis is the
biochemical hallmark of most, if not all, types of cancers. Because of this difference
between healthy cells and cancer cells, Warburg argued, cancer should be interpreted as a
type of mitochondrial disease.
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