Academy News

Imagine the impact of a single substance able to reverse antibiotic resistance and to kill tumor cells without harming healthy cells. Dr. Anders Hakansson, working as a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Catharina Svanborg, Lund University, Sweden, was studying human milk effects on the binding of bacterial cells to epithelial cells when he noted that a specific casein fraction of human milk blocked the binding of the bacterial cells and also affected the viability of the lung cancer cells used in the experiment.1 Further research determined that the casein protein, alpha-lactalbumin, must be partially unfolded and then bound with a specific fatty acid found in human breast milk to become a substance now known as HAMLET: Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumor cells. Two major lines of research have evolved from these observations: use of HAMLET in antimicrobial activity and as a tumoricidal agent.