Killing cancer

scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumour cells, increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects.

Previous studies in cell cultures have suggested that attaching anticancer drugs to nanoparticles for targeted delivery to tumour cells could increase the therapeutic response. Now, U-M scientists have shown that this nanotechnology-based treatment is effective in living animals.

"This is the first study to demonstrate a nanoparticle-targeted drug actually leaving the bloodstream, being concentrated in cancer cells, and having a biological effect on the animal's tumour," says James R. Baker Jr., M.D., the Ruth Dow Doan Professor of Biologic Nanotechnology at the University of Michigan, who directed the study.

"We're very optimistic that nanotechnology can markedly improve cancer therapy," says Baker, who directs the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and the Biological Sciences. "Targeting drugs directly to cancer cells reduces the amount that gets to normal cells, increases the drug's anti-cancer effect and reduces its toxicity. By improving the therapeutic index of cancer drugs, we hope to turn cancer into a chronic, manageable disease."