Prof. Thomas Seyfried
Professor of Biology, Boston College
Cancer metabolism • ketogenic metabolic therapy • mitochondrial biology • lipid biochemistry • neurogenetics
About the expert
Focus: Cancer metabolism, mitochondria, and ketogenic therapy
Thomas Seyfried is Professor of Biology at Boston College, where his research focuses on the metabolic basis of cancer. Building on Otto Warburg's hypothesis, he argues cancer is fundamentally a mitochondrial metabolic disease driven by damage to oxidative phosphorylation, rather than a primarily genetic disease driven by somatic mutations. He authored Cancer as a Metabolic Disease (Wiley, 2012), the foundational textbook on metabolic theory of cancer, and co-developed the Press-Pulse therapeutic strategy combining ketogenic metabolic therapy with targeted low-dose drug interventions to restrict the fermentable fuels (glucose and glutamine) that cancer cells require. His earlier work on calorie-restricted ketogenic diets at Yale for epilepsy management led to his cancer metabolism research. Pre-clinical studies and case reports support the approach; large randomized clinical trials are limited because the framework conflicts with mainstream oncology dogma. He is not a clinician and does not treat patients directly.
Why this matters
Researcher who views cancer as an energy problem in the cell's mitochondria rather than a genetic disease, and argues cancer cells depend on glucose and glutamine. Strongest on the biochemistry of how cancer cells use fuel; far more contested when extending this into a specific treatment strategy (ketogenic diet plus repurposed drugs) that mainstream oncology has not adopted.