Camcer smart bomb?

[Denny Crane!]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...r-side-effects

Could just be hype but sounds promising.

[The Mouth]

Interesting but I'll wait until I see results; wonder how much it costs to make and get.

by the way I noticed this weird little glowing cat in the corner of my screen and clicked on it (Off topic I know) is this like those dang glowing pigs I saw a few years ago???

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...d-glowing-cats

Makes me wonder what else you can do with genes and genetically modified animals.

[Logios]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...r-side-effects

Could just be hype but sounds promising.

It is not just a hype, active targeting of chemotherapeutics is a huge research/development area and a multitude of targets exists since many factors (proteins ect.) that are hallmarks of cancer cells are rarely expressed in most (but not all) other cells. The drug from the article is a pro-drug, it changes from an inert substance to an active form upon encountering the MMP-1 enzyme.
Chemotherapeutics are to begin with more cytotoxic (cell-poisonous) to cancer cells than to differentiated cells of the various tissues in the body since cancer cells divide at a higher rate and are therefore more often vulnurable to chemicals in their environment.
To increase the targeting of cancer cells over healthy cells two general strategies are applied, passive and active targeting. Passive targeting uses the enhanced permability and retention effect of tumor tissues since these are more porous than healthy tissues and lack lymphatic clearance. A rather large molecule (>50 nm) can be "trapped" in a tumor and drug molecules can be ligated on the surface of nanoparticles or dendrimers of this size or filled in the center of liposomes. this way the drug will be placed very close to its intended target and will be released when the transport molecule eventually degrades.
Active targeting includes adding a targeting ligand to the drug molecule either by itself or to a larger one along with the drug in order to use both the passive and active targeting strategies simultaneously. This targeting could be of the pro-drug form, like mentioned in the article (and that is just one of many prodrugs) or antibodies (or parts of these) against upregulated factors typical for cancer cells or by parts of the substrates for upregulated receptors on these (like the folate or hyaloronic acid receptors).
This all sounds great I guess, but even the most commonly overexpressed proteins in cancer cells are only overexpressed in around 90% of cancers. Furthermore, a cancer cell can only express proteins that the genome actually code for, meaning that some rare tissues somewhere in the body will always be targeted (to a lesser degree) as well.
Cancer is always a completely biochemically unique disease and might consist of several cancer cell types with different biochemical profiles. Knowing the nature of this biochemical profile is much more important to the treatment than where in the body the cancer appears.
It could be interesting to read the actual scientific article(s) that the newspaper article is based upon, maybe you have it or I could do a quick search if it interests you.

[Mangerman]

It is not just a hype, active targeting of chemotherapeutics is a huge research/development area

Indeed, I know quite a bit of research is being done on this subject at my university.

[Denny Crane!]

Even your criticisms sound like a positive thing, from what I can tell now Chaemotherapy is hugely destructive and if you can limit the targeting to even just "some rare tissues" that still gives the patient more than a fighting chance. Granted it was over a decade ago but a friend went through aggressive Chaemotherapy right up until her death from breast cancer (turned into NHL I believe, aggressive lymph node) and it utterly destroyed her body almost as badly as the cancer. Furthermore as you say there might be several different biochemical profile tumours in the body even the ability to selectively nuke half of them is a positive move forward I'd say?

(I do believe it was you writing about melanoma and the fact that you could actually get melanoma exhibiting two different biochemical profiles)

Not sure I'm not very good at cellular biology at all, so a lot of your explanations go over my head as I suspect the science paper would. Totally uneducated in biology really apart from some light research into spinal disorders, immune systems and various disorders (arthritis, skin problems, liver disfuntion, urinary infections and whatnot) and being totally honest in animals not humans.

[Logios]

Even your criticisms sound like a positive thing, from what I can tell now Chaemotherapy is hugely destructive and if you can limit the targeting to even just "some rare tissues" that still gives the patient more than a fighting chance. Granted it was over a decade ago but a friend went through aggressive Chaemotherapy right up until her death from breast cancer (turned into NHL I believe, aggressive lymph node) and it utterly destroyed her body almost as badly as the cancer. Furthermore as you say there might be several different biochemical profile tumours in the body even the ability to selectively nuke half of them is a positive move forward I'd say?

(I do believe it was you writing about melanoma and the fact that you could actually get melanoma exhibiting two different biochemical profiles)

Not sure I'm not very good at cellular biology at all, so a lot of your explanations go over my head as I suspect the science paper would. Totally uneducated in biology really apart from some light research into spinal disorders, immune systems and various disorders (arthritis, skin problems, liver disfuntion, urinary infections and whatnot) and being totally honest in animals not humans.

The definition of a successful cancer drug is that it prolongs the life with a significant number of months in the test subjects compared to a control group that receives a currently availible treatment. The number of "extra" months could be as low as three, so the ambition of completely clearing the body of cancer with a drug has yet to be fulfilled.
I belive that other thread is this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=451933&page=2
Oh and sorry for my messy language, I just hate having to login again, so I tried to deliver the text fast. If you need an explanation of some of the concepts just post, I will do my best then.