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Robot Bacteria To Fight Cancer
[Edit]
UMass Researcher Wins Grant To Develop "Germinator" Treatment[Edit]
Professor Neil Forbes of the University of Massachusetts is developing modified salmonella bacteria into cancer fighting “robots”. The bacteria burrow into the cancer cells where they are programmed to release drugs to kill the tumor. Conventional chemotherapy is limited in that it can’t reach deep within some tumors due to a lack of blood vessels. According to Forbes, “Think of the region between blood vessels as a sponge...The particles from a [conventional] therapeutic drug tend to accumulate around the outer portions of the sponge, nearest the blood vessels, and not penetrate to the interior.” The modified bacteria change that approach, in that they don’t need to travel via the blood vessels. Instead, they burrow deep into the tumor using long appendages known as “flagella”, enabling drugs to be delivered to even the hardest to reach cells.
 “When we get the Salmonella bacteria into the part of the tumor where we want them to be, we’ve programmed them to go ape,” says Forbes. “We have the bacteria release a drug to trigger a receptor in cancer cells called the “death receptor,” which induces cancer cells to kill themselves. We’ve already done this in the lab. We’ve done this successfully in cancerous mice, and it dramatically increases their survival rate.”
(umass.edu)Source: ecs.umass.edu Via: umass.edu |
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