| Posted: June 29, 2009 | |
Nano trojan horse to kill cancer cells |
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| (Nanowerk News) Australian researchers are set to begin human trials of a tiny nano-cell that acts as a "Trojan horse" against cancer cells, a breakthrough they say may curb the need for debilitating chemotherapy. | |
| The technology could eventually allow cancer sufferers to receive treatment as outpatients, rather than being hospitalised for lengthy bouts of chemotherapy, according to the researchers. | |
| Himanshu Brahmbhatt from Sydney-based biotechnology company EnGeneIC said the research -- outlined in the journal Nature Biotechnology -- had the potential to reduce the side-effects of cancer treatment and make it cheaper. | |
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| Chemotherapy treatments are mixed at the Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Australian researchers are set to begin human trials of a tiny nano-cell that acts as a "Trojan horse" against cancer cells, a breakthrough they say may curb the need for debilitating chemotherapy. | |
| Brahmbhatt said the technology allowed medics to target cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue, a major problem with existing chemotherapy treatments. | |
| "Essentially you need to get the drug directly inside the cancer cell and not slug the body," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. | |
| While researchers have been working on using nano-cells against cancer for at least five years, Brahmbhatt said the latest version had proved 100 percent effective treating cancers in mice which were resistant to conventional chemotherapy. | |
| The cells were loaded with anti-cancer medications and deployed in "waves" to combat cancers, he said. | |
| "The first wave of Trojan horses goes in there and disables the resistance mechanisms inside the cancer cell," he said. | |
| "Interestingly, these cancer cells are totally receptive to repeated waves of these Trojan horses. | |
| "We can send in these nano-cells again and again and each time we can load them up with different types of armaments against cancer." | |
| The cells will be tested on long-term cancer patients at three Melbourne hospitals later this year. | |
| Brahmbhatt said the nano-cells used less drugs than conventional treatments, making them cheaper to administer. | |
| The targeted treatment also means they have less side-effects than chemotherapy, he said. | |
| "(Cancer treatment) effectively can change to literally an outpatient therapy, where the patient simply comes in once or twice a week," Brahmbhatt said. | |
| "You can receive the treatment in a very short period of time and you can go about your normal life and not have any of these horrific toxic side effects." | |
| Source: AFP |
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