Science: Smart Bomb Developed To Detonate Cancer

Scientists have developed an anti-cancer "smart bomb" that can burrow into a tumour and detonate.

The drug-packed "nanocell" proved effective and safe against two distinct types of cancer in mice, it has been revealed. The autumn crocus is a beautiful but deadly flower. There is no antidote to colchine, the arsenic-like toxin it releases.

Nonetheless, there is reason for the British to try to save this native endangered plant, because it just might help cure many kinds of cancers. Imagine a cancer drug that can tunnel into a tumor, seal the exits and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins, all while leaving healthy cells unscathed. MIT researchers have designed a nanoparticle to do just that.

"We brought together three elements: cancer biology, pharmacology and engineering," said Ram Sasisekharan, a professor in MIT's Biological Engineering Division and leader of the research team.

"The fundamental challenges in cancer chemotherapy are its toxicity to healthy cells and drug resistance by cancer cells," Sasisekharan said. "So cancer researchers were excited about anti-angiogenesis," the theory that cutting off the blood supply can starve tumors to death. That strategy can backfire, however, because it also starves tumor cells of oxygen, prompting them to create new blood vessels and instigate metastasis and other self-survival activities.

Talks are now taking place with an unnamed funder to raise the £3 million needed to bring the drug to trial and patients at St James's University Hospital in Leeds could be the first to try the treatment, possibly in the next 18 to 24 months.

The drug, known as a "vascular disrupting agent" (VDA), is based on colchicine, a highly toxic substance in the flowers, leaves and seeds of the autumn crocus. Previous attempts to employ it to fight cancer have failed because of the compound's extreme toxicity, but Prof Patterson's team found a way of rendering the drug harmless until it was exposed to a protein enzyme called MMP1 only found in tumours.

"Our novel delivery method uses the presence of this active MMP to activate the drug, which attacks and breaks down cancer blood vessels, destroying the tumour's lifeline", said Prof Patterson, who will outline the research at the British Science Festival taking place at the University of Bradford this week.



The Ahmadiyya Post, Science. By Zubair Ahmed. Sept 14, 2011