Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990 TAG: 9006200493
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
The system combines a restricted diet with insulin and other drugs to attack the way a cancer cell converts fuel to energy, causing the cell to poison itself and die, Clarence D. Cone Jr. told the Daily Press and Times-Herald newspapers Tuesday.
Cone said the difference between his cancer treatment and chemotherapy, in which toxic drugs are given intravenously, is that chemotherapy indiscriminately kills cells - cancer cells as well as healthy ones. Cone's non-toxic treatment attacks only cancer cells, he said.
Various versions of his treatment were tested on 70 people in Mexico and the United States and were found to be effective on 17 different kinds of cancer, Cone told the Newport News newspapers.
Cone said he had not published any of his eight years of research because he wanted to keep the project secret until he got patent protection.
Cone's patent, No. 4,935,450, was issued in his name Tuesday, said Oscar Mastin, spokesman for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Cone said the acquisition of a patent means he now will seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to begin animal and then human testing of the system.
The Newport News papers were unable to find any cancer specialists willing to comment on Cone's treatment system. Specialists would be afraid of risking their reputations by commenting on unpublished work, said Valerie Mehl, spokeswoman for the Johns Hopkins University Oncology Center in Baltimore.
Spokesmen for the National Cancer Institute and the Scientists Institute for Public Information were also unable to find a scientist willing to talk about the possibilities of Cone's process.
Cone said Mexican cancer specialists who helped him test the process signed confidentiality agreements.
Cone's treatment system grew out of research he did at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Langley Research Center in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1969, he discovered bridges that connect cancer cells. The following year, he discovered characteristics of cancer cells that allow them to divide and invade other healthy cells. After each of those discoveries, he was invited by the American Cancer Society to discuss his work at seminars for science writers. In 1977, NASA received a patent for a Cone-developed process by which cell growth could be stimulated or retarded.
Cone won NASA's inventor-of-the-year award in 1977-78.
His lab then moved to Hampton Veterans Administration, where he sought a way to stop the wild division of cancer cells. He left his government post in the early 1980s to pursue his research privately, using his home as a base.
Cone said that with his treatment, as with other methods, there is a chance for recurrence of cancer. But since his treatment does not damage surrounding cells, a patient could resume the treatment, he said.
FDA spokeswoman Faye Peterson said it might take up to 12 years for the agency to grant approval to Cone's treatment, with animal testing required before human testing would be cleared.
Cone is hopeful the approval process will be speeded up by relaxed FDA testing requirements prompted by the AIDS crisis.
by CNB