Download Otto Heinrich Warburg

Otto Heinrich Warburg
By: Alina Ungureanu &
Stephanie Segreto
Biography
Otto Heinrich Warburg:
Born-October 8, 1883 in
Germany
Died-August 1, 1970 in Berlin,
Germany
Son of physicist Emil Warburg
Otto was a German physiologist
and medical doctor.
He won a Nobel prize in
Physiology and Medicine for his
Warburg effect in 1931.
He was one of the twentieth
century's leading biochemist
What Was Known Before?
The concept of glycolysis and metabolism was
already known.
Warburg's early researches was in the
polypeptide field, he also worked on the process
of oxidation.
His methods involved detailed studies on the
assimilation of carbon dioxide in plants, the
metabolism of tumors, and the chemical
constituent of the oxygen transferring respiratory
fermentation.
Hypothesis (Warburg Effect)
Warburg hypothesized that cancer is caused by
the fact that tumor cells mainly generate energy
by non-oxidative breakdown of glucose
“Healthy" cells mainly generate energy from
oxidative breakdown of pyruvate.
Pyruvate is an end-product of glycolysis, and is
oxidized within the mitochondria.
According to Warburg, cancer should be
interpreted as a mitochondrial dysfunction.
The Warburg Effect
The Warburg effect is the inhibition of carbon dioxide fixation, and
subsequently of photosynthesis, by high oxygen concentrations. The
oxygenase activity of RuBisCO, which initiates the process of
photorespiration, largely accounts for this effect.
In oncology, the Warburg effect is that most cancer cells
predominantly produce energy by a high rate of glycolysis followed
by lactic acid fermentation in the cytosol, rather than by a
comparatively low rate of glycolysis followed by oxidation of
pyruvate in mitochondria like most normal cells. The latter process is
aerobic. Tumour cells typically have glycolytic rates that are up to
200 times higher than those of their normal tissues of origin; this
occurs even if oxygen is plentiful
He postulated that this change in metabolism is the fundamental
cause of cancer
The Warburg Effect
The Warburg effect has important medical applications, as high
aerobic glycolysis by malignant tumours is utilized clinically to
diagnose and monitor treatment responses of cancers by radiation
as radiation kills cancerous cells.
The effect may simply be a consequence of damage to the
mitochondria in cancer, or an adaptation to low-oxygen
environments within tumours, or a result of cancer genes shutting
down the mitochondria because they are involved in the cell's
apoptosis program which would otherwise kill cancerous cells.
It may also be an effect associated with cell proliferation. Since
glycolysis provides most of the building blocks required for cell
proliferation, it has been proposed that cancer cells (and normal
proliferating cells) may need to activate glycolysis despite the
presence of oxygen in order to proliferate. There is also evidence
that attributes some of the high aerobic glycolytic rates to an over
expressed form of mitochondrially-bound hexokinase responsible for
driving the high glycolytic activity.
One of his Lectures…
"Cancer, above all other
diseases, has countless
secondary causes. But, even
for cancer, there is only one
prime cause. Summarized in a
few words, the prime cause of
cancer is the replacement of
the respiration of oxygen in
normal body cells by a
fermentation of sugar… " -Dr. Otto H. Warburg in Lecture
Interpretations
His "Warburg effect" asserts that even
when oxygen is plentiful, cancer cells
continue to use glycolysis (a secondary
system of producing energy, employed by
normal cells only when oxygen is in short
supply).
Thanks to Otto Heinrich Warburg, we can
discover new ways of finding and treating
cancer.
References
"Warburg effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect>.
"Warburg effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect>.
"Otto Heinrich Warburg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg>.
"Warburg Effect." How Stuff Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
<sci-ence.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famousscientists/biologists/otto-heinrich-warburg-info.htm >.