Scientists Deliver Bee Toxin To Tumors Via "Nanobees"

ScienceDaily is reporting that Washington University School of Medicine researchers have found a way to deliver bee toxin to tumors using nano-spheres they call "nanobees." The results in mice showed a cessation of growth or even shrinkage of tumors while the surrounding tissue was protected from the toxin. "The core of the nanobees is composed of perfluorocarbon, an inert compound used in artificial blood. The research group developed perfluorocarbon nanoparticles several years ago and have been studying their use in various medical applications, including diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis and cancer. About six millionths of an inch in diameter, the nanoparticles are large enough to carry thousands of active compounds, yet small enough to pass readily through the bloodstream and to attach to cell membranes."

Comments

Holy dupes batman

[Hubbell]

Lets get serious now editors, this is a dupe, half the fucking articles posted nowadays are dupes, wtf?

Re:Holy dupes batman

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo hoo.

Nobody likes people who cry and whine over trivial mistakes that don't really matter.

Also, you missed an apostrophe.

Re:Holy dupes batman

[eln]

I don't get it, if you're trying to compliment the editors on the fact that only half the articles are dupes these days, rather than the more historically typical 75 or 80%, why do you seem so angry about it?

Re:Holy dupes batman

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Slashdot's management's cost reduction plan. You see, they have their editors post a story two or three times. We all comment on them again and in the meantime, Slashdot get's the ad revenue! See?

The new plan will be they run a bunch of articles in the morning and the morning folks comment on those, then they run the same articles in the afternoon and the afternoon folks comment on those - kinda like how the History Channel does their programming in the middle of the week.

Now, the night folks get tomorrows articles first and the morning folks think they're new - and back we go again. I think it fucking brilliant, if you ask me.

Up next will be posting of highly controversial articles. Some in the queue:

1. The linkage between Mac use and homosexuality.
2. Windows IS really better than Mac.
3. The RiAA has been wrongfully condemned - how they will get us out of this economic mess.
4. Bush was THE greatest technology President.
5. The creation of Linux was the last ditch effort of the KGB to bring back the Soviet Empire.

There's more, but I don't want to tip off the Slashdot management as to who their leak is.

Re:Holy dupes batman

[MrMista_B]

What evidence do you have that this is a dupe?

Re:Holy dupes batman

[selven]

By definition, only half of articles can be duplicates. If you go beyond that, they become "trips".

More questions than answers

[Nefarious Wheel]

Just out of curiosity (totally medically ignorant here) would such things trigger a bee-sting allergy? Someone close to me is extremely sensitive to bee products (milligram of honey is worth a long distance migrane). The delivery mechanism is interesting, but the toxin is scary to me.

Re:More questions than answers

[NAR8789]

From the title, "Scientists Deliver Bee Toxin To Tumors..."

Although, I did have the same initial reaction. I think the term "nanobee" is just far too distractingly catchy.

Re:More questions than answers

[jfdawes]

What exactly do you mean by "bee-sting allergy". These nanobees are filled with melittin, which may or may not be the same thing.

Interestingly, if you inject melittin you'll cause "widespread destruction of red blood cells" but these things don't. That might be because they target "growing blood vessels". Presumably, if the only areas of growing blood cells are tumors, you might be able to get away with injecting someone who is allergic.

Or, assuming your friend is allergic to melittin and not one of the other fun things in a bee string, they might end up a writhing blob of agony.

Nano this!

[R2.0]

Can somebody whip up a Greasemonkey script that replaces the word or prefix "nano" with "really fucking small"? It would be a service to your fellow slashdotter.

Re:Nano this!

[Hognoxious]

Seconded. It's exponentially annoying.

Re:Nano this!

[interkin3tic]

Actually I take that footnote back, the NIH just awarded me a $12 million grant to study whether or not grant-writing agencies award more grants to grants that have nano stuck in there, based on that post.

Re:Nano this!

[Shikaku]

Done. Just tell your friends about how Shikaku made it for you.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/56790

Re:Nano this!

[oldhack]

Well, "About six millionths of an inch in diameter" is about 3-4 nm, so at least this one actually is in the nano scale.

Re:Nano this!

[fightinfilipino]

oh great, now how am i supposed to explain to people why they see iPod reallyfuckingsmalls for sale at the Apple store?

I see it coming

[Maniacal]

Yeah, sure. This will work fine and dandy until some hop on a cargo ship and the US is slowly but surely colonized by Africanized Nanobees. Don't say I didn't warn you

Another non-starter?

[SecondCobra]

Sooo tired of reading these "new cancer treatment" stories. Been reading about them for years and yet if you get cancer what happens? You're given a cocktail of drugs and blased with radiation. I would like to see one of these things actually turn into a real treatment that means people have cancer cured without all the suffering that Chemo causes.

Re:Another non-starter?

[CorporateSuit]

Sooo tired of reading these "new cancer treatment" stories. Been reading about them for years and yet if you get cancer what happens? You're given a cocktail of drugs and blased with radiation. I would like to see one of these things actually turn into a real treatment that means people have cancer cured without all the suffering that Chemo causes.

The problem with "cure for cancer" is that there are a lot of different cancers and a lot of different causes. There are cancers that have very high cure rates and cancers that you get and know that you will die in 5 years unless someone comes up with a life-saving Eureeka!. Much like how the "common cold" is not a single, treatable virus, rather a list of similar symptoms caused by a variety of weak viruses, cancer as we know it tends to be more a list of symptoms than the actual problem. The more ways we come up with combatting the life-threatening symptoms or the cancer itself, the less "only-defense" our chemotherapy needs to be. Instead of "Kill the patient slowly, hoping the cancer dies first" is a very primitive method of treating a disease which overextends its own energies in multiplying, and has been effective in many cases, we can find better ways, and are finding better ways -- but these usually target specific cancers and their symptoms, or specific symptoms, rather than an all-curing panacea.

Re:Another non-starter?

[interkin3tic]

I too want to skip right to the goals of research without having to actually go through the slow, torturous process of getting there, without any of the inevitable dead-ends. Do we really have to research cancer treatments, have an idea, test it on multiple levels to make sure it works and doesn't kill you, develop it, just to cure cancer? Why can't we skip right to the part where we cure cancer?

Along those same lines, why do I have to make a cake or buy one in order to have my cake or eat it? Why can't I just eat a cake without actually procuring one? I keep reading about new cakes and yet if you want a cake what happens? You still have to buy it or bake it. Why? I'll tell you why, stupid causality. If only we could fiat right past that.

~

Sorry for all the sarcasm. The reason there are so many non-starters in learning how to cure cancer is BECAUSE WE DON'T ALREADY KNOW HOW TO CURE CANCER.

Re:Another non-starter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Several classes of novel treatment are already in use. Monoclonal antibodies for example. There are several of those approved for use in cancer treatment today, and a few more used "off label" in cancer treatment for specific cases.

We also already routinely treat some cancers with surgery, and even with "watchful waiting" (doing nothing because it might not get any worse). So it's certainly not the case that whatever cancer you're diagnosed with they'll prescribe drugs and radiation. Not at all.

But there is no magic bullet. There won't ever be a magic bullet. Maybe you don't like that, but there it is.

The body is very, very complicated and interconnected, and cancer is a part of the body. So nearly anything powerful enough to damage the tumour will be bad for you.

They came up with a much less horrible chemo treatment for the cancer I had, it ran in parallel trial while I was being treated. Patients recorded less nausea, more days when they were able to go about their lives normally, etc. But unfortunately three times as many of them died as with the previous standard (97% survival vs 99% with gold standard). That's a no-brainer - nausea sucks, but nobody wants to die to avoid it.

Re:Six millionths of an inch

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. Inches? What kind of crazy units are they using? Why not convert it to something easy to understand, like Slashdot International Units. For reference, six millionths of an inch is approximately 41.4 zepto light-fortnights.