New Drug Delivery Methods Offer Hope for Treating Cancer

New research is going on at different institutions to advance in the treatment of cancer. One of the areas of major research study is that of new drug delivery methods for treating cancer. The idea here is to target cancerous tumors and cells in a more efficient way and with less toxicity for regular or non-cancerous cells

Recently at a major medical conference (2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 12-16), researchers reported that drugs could be delivered by a new technique that uses a peptide (a small molecule of just a few amino acids like a very small protein), known as "Trojan horses" to deliver drugs in a very efficient way.

Using special nanotechnology new technologies it is possible to design these "Trojan horses" in very specific configurations so as to carry specific drugs. And here I am taking about design at the molecular level.

Dr. Kousparou, presented at the conference the results of a new "Antennapedia 'trojan' peptide" used to delivers a specific drug for tumor reduction and elimination (Abstract 4908). The new Antennapedia protein as a "trojan horse" works as a "hole maker." It actually makes holes in the external lawyers of cancer cells. The holes are used by the "Trojan horse" to enter the cell and deliver a specific cancer-suppressor protein known as p21, which has been proved successfully to eradicate malignant cancer tumors in animal systems

The combination of this new technology with chemotherapy results in better cancer treatments, that is in more tumor eradication and reduction and in an increase in survival time in animal systems, mainly in mice. This is what Kousparou and colleagues reported at the Cancer Research medical conference.