Using Nanoparticles To Improve Chemotherapy

sciencehabit writes with good news involving cancer research. From the article: "Chemotherapy drugs are like a shotgun. Even though doctors are just aiming for tumors, the compounds hit a variety of other places in the body, leading to side effects like bone marrow damage and hair loss. To improve their aim, researchers have tried to package these drugs inside tiny hollow nano-sized containers that can be directed toward tumors and bypass healthy tissues. But the size, shape, and makeup of these 'nanoparticles' can drastically affect where and when they are taken up. Now, scientists have surveyed the landscape of some 100 different nanoparticle formulations and shown that when a conventional chemotherapeutic drug is packaged inside the best of these nanoparticles, it proves considerably more effective at fighting prostate cancer (summary; article paywalled) in animals than the drug alone."

Comments

is it me or does it seem like

[nimbius]

instead of correlating cancer to things like BPE and other refined petrochemical bioaccumulants as well as using science to determine threatining chemicals in our endless consumer-driven product lines, we're just ignoring these or calling them 'cancer-suspect agents' or redefining the PEL to be met under laughably unrealistic conditions in the real world?

id make a cursory assertion that the lock-step rise in cancer rates is probably related somehow to the twin revolving-doors of the EPA and FDA, through which industry experts and regulators are frankly indistinguishable and utterly useless.