Posted on 06/29/2009 12:10:59 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs.
The "trojan horse" therapy has the potential to directly target cancer cells with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment that sees chemotherapy drugs injected into a cancer patient and attacking both cancer and healthy cells.
Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the "trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.
The scientists plan to start human clinical trials in the coming months. Human trials of the cell delivery system will start next week at the Peter MacCullum Cancer Center at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Austin at the University of Melbourne.
"The beauty is that our EDVs operate like 'Trojan Horses' They arrive at the gates of the affected cells and are always allowed in," said MacDiarmid.
"We are playing the rogue cells at their own game. They switch-on the gene to produce the protein to resist drugs, and we are switching-off the gene which, in turn, enables the drugs to enter."
The Nature report said the mini-cells were "well tolerated with no adverse side effects or deaths in any of the actively treated animals, despite repeated dosing."
"Significantly, our methodology does not damage the normal cells and is applicable to a wide spectrum of solid cancer types," said MacDiarmid.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Now that is a ‘TRojan Horse’ I could live with. We all could.
Thanks for posting this.
That sounds very promising. The technique is not only a successful tactic for one cancer, but can be effective for a number of cancers.
Excellent.
FYI!
Liver,breast,and Pancreatic cancers are the ones I want most gone!
Silver bullet?
Perhaps those were listed and I didn’t read that far.
It’s still amazing to me how invisible prostate cancer is. I hear probably 250 requests to support breast cancer research to one for prostate cancer. And at that I may be exaggerating how many prostate cancer appeals I hear.
As I understand it, incidents of breast cancer and prostate cancer are relatively even.
I just watched “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith. Hmmm...
thanks, bfl
This looks very promising. OTOH, the “Cancer Industry” will consider this a very big threat to their livelihood and will not take it sitting down. Any group that is a FOO (Friend of Obama) will have a big club working for them to stop it.
I wonder how far away this is from being available to the US public?
That's exactly how I feel every time I hear that a cure for cancer is just around the corner.
The "trojan horse" therapy has the potential to directly target cancer cells with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment that sees chemotherapy drugs injected into a cancer patient and attacking both cancer and healthy cells.Unfortunately, too much of the American health care dollar is spent on prolonging life of people suffering from old age and disease, so, no, you can't have this treatment -- even twenty years from now, when the FDA gets around to approving human trials in the US, ten years or more after it has been in use as a successful treatment in other countries.
I have a natural right to experiment with my own body. Out of the way, FDA.
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