Glucose Metabolism in Cancer

Otto Warburg observed a peculiar phenomenon in 1924, unknowingly laying the foundation for the field of cancer metabolism. While his contemporaries hypothesized that tumor cells derived the energy required for uncontrolled replication from proteolysis and lipolysis, Warburg instead found them to rapidly consume glucose, converting it to lactate [1]. The significance of this finding, later termed the Warburg effect, went unnoticed by the larger scientific community at that time. The field of cancer metabolism lay dormant for almost a century awaiting advances in molecular biology and genetics which would later open the doors to new cancer therapies.