Palladium method targets drugs where they are needed

The method offers a way of targeting drugs where they are needed and could safeguard the rest of the patient’s body and help curb side effects associated with chemotherapy.

The researchers came up with a way of exploiting palladium as a catalyst — a method that is widely used in industrial reactions but has not so far been applied in biochemical systems.

‘We are doing new chemistry that has never been done before inside a cell,’ said Emma Johansson of Edinburgh University, who worked on the project.

‘Normally when you synthesise drugs, you do that in a chemistry lab at really high temperatures of around 130°C and then you give it to the patient. We managed to it do at 37°C inside the cell.’

Regular chemotherapy drugs circulate freely in the bloodstream and attack rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells.

However, they also attack normal, healthy dividing cells, such as those in bone marrow and the digestive tract, causing a range of side effects.