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.

Re:is it me or does it seem like

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's totally abandon all the conveniences of modern life due to slight possible health risks.
How about birth control pills?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control_pill#Environmental_impact

Love the greens and their nostalgia for a simpler time when we all lived short agricultural subsistence living life spans.

Nothing like actually working an organic subsistence farm on a commune to find this stuff pretty laughable.

Re:is it me or does it seem like

[the eric conspiracy]

Not to mention that there are estimates that about 80% of these studies cannot be reproduced.

Including the BPA ones.

http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/114/1/1.full

While it's fine to be conservative when considering the impact of adding something to the food chain, we need to also consider these studies with a very jaundiced eye. The simple fact of this matter is that in the worst case scenarios, i.e. occupational exposure (workers at the actual factories that make this stuff) there is no epidemiological evidence of problems. And there is no known mechanism for the extreme low level effects that are being reported in many of these studies.

Re:is it me or does it seem like

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, radiation exposure is not linear.

Low levels are easily handled by the body since we've evolved to deal with low levels.

In fact, there is evidence that low but slightly elevated levels may have a protective effect, due to hormesis.

Re:is it me or does it seem like

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are saying is valid but does not relate to radiation causing cancer. It relates to say, radiation flat out killing you from destroying your body's critical tissue faster than it can regenerate and keep you alive (say, membrane of the lungs for instance, lining of the stomach or intestines, etc). You can be exposed to tons of radiation but never get a random cancer causing dnamutation, or you could be exposed to only normal radiation and get a random cancer causing dna mutation. Sorta like how a person can be shot 10 times and live (say arms legs shoulders no vital organs or arteries), but a person shot in the head has a tendency to die. While it only takes one, statistically speaking bullets are bad for your body (each has a statistical chance of being a critical hit, the more hits = greater overall chance). Roll a 6 sided die, if you roll one you die, 1 in 6 right odds right? Now roll 2, if either one rolls a 1 you die, now 3... your chances increases as the number of rolls increases.

Radiation causes many different types of mutation. Some of its good (drives evolution for instance), some isn't good but not particularly harmful (breaks cell wall, cell dies, meh, cells die all the time). In those cases radiation exposure damage isn't linear, your body is able to cope with so much as a time.

But Cancer is different. Cellular damage from radiation isn't particularly rare, but among that mutation is somewhat rare (speaking lots of ionizing incidents and lots of cells in a body here, so bear with the definition of "rare"). Cancer is a RARE form (or forms if you will) of mutation which causes a cells otherwise limited reproductive (splitting) cycle to become unlimited.

Normally when DNS strands split they lose a Telomere, eventually the splits run out of telomeres. In the case of say skin which replenishes all your life, a adult stem cell from your bone marrow enters your blood stream, it becomes the "first" skin cell of this splitting process, it will then over time split about 20-30ish times to produce a whole lotta cells. If the Telomere chain didn't get shorter, this would go on for ever, ie, you'd get a lump that grew larger and larger and larger.

A little bit of cancer isn't good for you due to the "grows forever" thing.

Re:is it me or does it seem like

[mcgrew]

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

You woudn't if you'd been alive before the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act like I was. The difference between now and 1969 is incredible, especially around factories.

Back then, when cars didn't have air conditioning, you had to have the windows rolled up when driving past a Monsanto plant because the air literally burned your lungs and made your eyes water. What little vegetation there was anywhere near these plants was brown and sickly. Now drive past a Monsanto plant and you might catch a whiff of bleach at worst, and usually smell nothing at all, and there's now healthy green vegetation.

Before the EPA, rivers and streams were so polluted that they actually caught fire.

This graph (PDF) shows cancer rates between 1930 and 2000. There's a slow rise in lung cancers from 1930 to the late 1940s, when they rose far faster until around 1990 when they started dropping. It makes me suspect radiation is the primary culprit, since above ground atom bomb testing started in the mid '40s and stopped in the 1960s.

Your primary source of chemical carcinogens (you being a desk-bound nerd as opposed to someone working at Monsanto) is probably your automobile. Both the fumes from the gasoline and the exhaust from your tailpipe are highly carcinogenic.

I googled BPE and found no chemical with that name.

.500 Black Powder Express
Bachelor of Physical Education
Ballpark estimate
Banco Popular Español, banking group in Spain
Barclays Private Equity
Bataan Provincial Expressway in the Philippines
Before Present Era - a year numbering system often used in archaeology in which the year 1950 is used as the epoch marker, an alternative to Before Present.
Berliner Parkeisenbahn, a ridable miniature railway near Berlin Wuhlheide station
Bureau of Public Enterprises in Nigeria
Byte pair encoding in computing
Spanish ship Juan Carlos I (L61), initially known as Buque de ProyecciÃn Estratégica

I doubt you were referring to Byte Pair Encoding. The chemical that makes plastic stiff maybe? I can't remember what the stuff is called.

Except Nanoparticles cause cancer...

[chrisphotonic]

At least- that is what we'll find next week.

Re:It's also very effective

[reverseengineer]

Depends on what the material of the nanoparticles is. The PEG-PLA system used in this study doesn't tend to accumulate, and in fact the lactic acid from the breakdown of PLA can be metabolized. Similarly, the drug Abraxane, already on the market, uses nanoparticles of human serum albumin. In terms of the liver and kidneys getting exposed to the released drug, yes, that is a hazard, but one that exists regardless of the delivery method. Using nanoparticles can greatly increase the solubility and bioavailability of many drugs so that less can be used.