The cure for cancer can come from the very substance that sustained us during the earliest stage of our lives. Scientists accidentally discovered that a substance in breast milk could be the answer to killing tumor cells. Nicknamed Hamlet (Human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells), the possible cancer cure reportedly attacked cancer cells without harming healthy cells. Moreover, it doesn’t have any of the crippling side effects of chemotherapy.
The surprise discovery triggered further studies to find out if Hamlet could have similar effects on patients with cervical and bowel cancer after trials on bladder cancer patients yielded positive results. Hamlet — a protein called alpha-lactalbumin — helped patients shed off dead tumor cells days after treatment.
“We were looking for novel antimicrobial agents, and new breast milk is a very good source of these. During one experiment we needed human cells and bacteria to be present, and we chose human tumor cells for practical reasons,” said Professor Catharina Svanborg, Immunologist at Lund University in Sweden and main proponent of the study.