Tests show that an Israeli-developed therapy is effective in fighting prostate cancer, David Shamah of The Times of Israel reported on Sunday.

The treatment, called Tookad Soluble, was developed by professors Yoram Salomon and Avigdor Scherzat of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. It uses principles of photosynthesis to identify and then kill cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells alone.

As opposed to surgery or chemotherapy, the Tookad therapy, which lasts about 90 minutes, has no lasting “debilitating effects” on the body. The therapy has been approved for marketing in Mexico after two Phase III clinical trials. In the trials, 80 men with localized prostate cancer underwent therapy; after two years, 80 percent of the subjects remain cancer-free.

Efforts are underway to get approval from the European Medicine Agency for authorization of Tookad as a prostate cancer treatment.

Shamah explained the technology behind Tookad:

Tookad was first synthesized in Scherz’s lab from bacteriochlorophyll, the photosynthetic pigment of a type of aquatic bacteria that draw their energy supply from sunlight. Photosynthesis style, the infrared light activates Tookad (via thin optic fibers that are inserted into the cancerous prostatic tissue) which consists of oxygen and nitric oxide radicals that initiate occlusion and destruction of the tumor blood vessels.

These elements are toxic to the cancer cells, and once the Tookad formula is activated, they invade the cancer cells, preventing them from absorbing oxygen and choking them until they are dead. The Tookad solution, having done its job, is supposed to then be ejected from the body, with no lingering consequences – and no more cancer.

Steba Biotech, the Israeli company that holds the therapy’s marketing rights, is pursuing studies to test Tookad’s efficacy with other forms of cancer as well as advanced prostate cancer, in collaboration with Weizmann, Oxford University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

[Photo: Pixabay ]