Covert Cancer Drugs ‘Fast Tracked’ To Tumours
11th August 2005 - Professor Caroline Springers’ team has developed a series of powerful anti-cancer drugs that can sneak into tumours and destroy them, without causing damage to surrounding healthy cells. Experiments showed that the drugs substantially delayed tumour growth in human breast cancer cells.
Most standard cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, treat cancer anywhere in the body by indiscriminately attacking dividing cells. The treatment damages healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, which is why patients can experience side effects including nausea, fatigue and hair loss.
The series of drugs the team developed are called prodrugs for use in the method of drug treatment called gene-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (GDEPT). In GDEPT a ‘scout’ enzyme is sent to THE tumour marking it for destruction. The enzyme lays dormant in the tumour cells until a non-toxic prodrug is given. The prodrug only becomes active when it reacts with the scout enzyme in the cancerous cells. The enzyme then acts as a switch to turn the harmless prodrug into a potent cancer drug.
Find out more about:
- Professor Caroline Springer
- Gene and Oncogene Targeting Team
