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Nanotech Trojan Horse That Kills Cancer
An anonymous reader writes "University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells - increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects." From the article: "The drug delivery vehicle used by U-M scientists is a manmade polymer molecule called a dendrimer. Less than five nanometers in diameter, these dendrimers are small enough to slip through tiny openings in cell membranes. One nanometer equals one-billionth of a meter, which means it would take 100,000 nanometers lined up side-by-side to equal the diameter of a human hair."
I know that this technology is supposed to be helpful, but something about the process makes me feel uncomfortable.
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I realize this has been adequately explained already, but I've come up with an insane analogy, and can't resist.
Suppose it takes 10 units of poison to kill a Muppet. Suppose further that Cookie Monster is the target (cancer).
In conventional chemotherapy, we have the equivalent of injecting 1 unit of poison into each of a pile of carrots. We then walk down Sesame Street with the carrots. Bert and Ernie (normal cells) each eat a carrot, ingesting 1 unit of poison. Cookie Monster, being a glutton beyond just cookies, eats 3. In order to kill Cookie Monster, we have to repeat 4 times. This has the disadvantage of getting Bert and Ernie up to 40% of the lethal dose, which is going to make them quite sick.
As described, this new approach bakes the poison into cookies. Now Bert and Ernie each get a cookie and 1 unit of poison, but Cookie Monster scarfs the remaining cookies, and quickly keels over. Thus the target is eliminated, and the effects on bystanders are reduced.
The numbers are completely made up, Muppets can't eat, and Cookie Monster never actually gets the cookies in his mouth anyway.
But then again, I could be wrong.
As a person recently diagnosed with cancer and currently in chemo, I find more than passing interest in this story. Although, very clearly the approach described here isn't going to help me, I've spent a lot of time researching cancer therapies of various types and I feel qualifed to comment.
Cancer isn't one disease, it's a group of related diseases. A solution that works for say breast cancer may or may not work for other cancers. The idea of targetting cancer cells specifically for apoptosis (cell death) isn't new but the idea of using a delivery vehicle that can have a deadly payload seems to be somewhat novel.
There are a number of other drugs in development that might have a similar effect. Also there are human clinical trials already in progress for methods of creating a vaccine tailored to a specific person by using that person's tumor. Given that a phase 1 trial of the approach described in the article will not start for two years and that trials generally take at least 7 years before approval, it's likely that other equally novel delivery methods will be approved substantially before this one. This approach will have to show it's better than the others that will be on the market already when approval time comes along.
With some popular cancers such as breast and colorectal cancers, it's quite likely that there will be better therapies. However, if this approach can be targetted to the really deadly cancers (like lung and ovarian cancers) or the many cancers that don't have any good treatment options, this could be a real winner. If you can wait long enough before getting your disease.