Cancer treatment: an encouraging result
Australian scientists have developed a new way to treat drug-resistant cancer, which has demonstrated high efficiency in animal experiments. The essence of the method is to deliver drugs directly to the tumor cells using specially created "mini-cells".
Researchers from the Sydney biotech company EnGeneIC decided to use "mini-cells" obtained with the help of mutated bacteria for the treatment of cancer, which, with each cell division, "bud off" closed fragments of the membrane filled with cytoplasm.
Scientists injected antitumor drugs into these "mini-cells", and coated them externally with antibodies to receptors that are present in large numbers on the membranes of many tumor cells (receptors for epidermal growth factor). Thanks to antibodies, "mini-cells" selectively attach to cancer cells, and then are absorbed and destroyed by them, like ordinary bacteria. As a result, the drug gets inside the tumor cells and selectively destroys them.
While testing the method, scientists transplanted human uterine cancer cells into mice. Then the animals were injected with "mini-cells" with a small interfering RNA that suppresses the activity of the gene that ensures the resistance of the tumor to chemotherapy. After some time, the mice received "mini-cells" containing the antitumor drug doxorubicin. After 70 days from the start of treatment, tumor cells disappeared in all animals, while mice from the control group that did not receive therapy died within a month.
The researchers claim to have obtained similar results in more than 20 dogs with brain tumors. The study of the tolerability of the new method on monkeys has demonstrated its safety, and scientists plan to start testing on cancer-stricken volunteers in three Melbourne hospitals within a month.
Copper news based on the materials of The New York Times: New Cancer Treatment Shows Promise in TestingPortal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru/