Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Treatment Kills Metastatic Cancer Cells

Posted by Soulskill on from the search-and-destroy dept.

robert2cane points out a promising study from Cornell University about controlling the spread of cancer. There are many treatments for an isolated tumor, but once cancer cells reach the bloodstream and start spreading through the body, it's much more difficult to control. The new research (PDF), led by Michael King, developed a compound that is able to target and eliminate cancer cells in the blood of mice. "When attempting to develop a treatment for metastases, King faced two problems: targeting moving cancer cells and ensuring cell death could be activated once they were located. To handle both issues, he built fat-based nanoparticles that were one thousand times smaller than a human hair and attached two proteins to them. One is E-selectin, which selectively binds to white blood cells, and the other is TRAIL. He chose to stick the nanoparticles to white blood cells because it would keep the body from excreting them easily. This means the nanoparticles, made from fat molecules, remain in the blood longer and thus have a greater chance of bumping into freely moving cancer cells. There is an added advantage. Red blood cells tend to travel in the center of a blood vessel, and white blood cells stick to the edges. This is because red blood cells are lower density and can be easily deformed to slide around obstacles. Cancer cells have a similar density to white blood cells and remain close to the walls, too. As a result, these nanoparticles are more likely to bump into cancer cells and bind their TRAIL receptors."

1 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Cannabis already does this. Look up CBD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    CBD already does the exact same thing... and you can grow it and make oil out of it to treat yourself.

    Look up Holy Anointing Oil. Look up Gray Wolf on icmag dot com and look up skunkpharmresearch dot com

    I'm giving away cuttings for clones of "harlequin" cannabis for free in Colorado. It's 8% CBD and only 6% THC so there's no 'stone' or 'high' associated with it, just a clear mind and memory, mood control, anxiety control, pain control and a whole lot more. Look up TheCleanGame dot Net and fill out the form.

    Keep it Clean! :D