Australian scientists kill cancer cells with "trojan horse"

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD516101.htm

Australian scientists have developed a "trojan horse" therapy to combat cancer, using a bacterially-derived nano cell to penetrate and disarm the cancer cell before a second nano cell kills it with chemotherapy drugs.

The "trojan horse" therapy has the potential to directly target cancer cells with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment that sees chemotherapy drugs injected into a cancer patient and attacking both cancer and healthy cells.

Sydney scientists Dr Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, said they had achieved 100 percent survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the "trojan horse" therapy in the past two years.

The scientists plan to start human clinical trials in the coming months. Human trials of the cell delivery system will start next week at the Peter MacCullum Cancer Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Austin at the University of Melbourne.

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"Significantly, our methodology does not damage the normal cells and is applicable to a wide spectrum of solid cancer types," said MacDiarmid.

"The hope is that the benign nature of this EDV technology should enable cancer sufferers to get on with their lives and operate normally using out-patient therapy."

[thereismore]

1. Please God Makes this work in people! nt

[thereismore]

2. This would make cancer (solid tumors) no worse than an occasional toothache. nt

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3. New Treatment for Cancer Shows Promise in Testing

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/health/research/29drug.html?hp

A new method of attacking cancer cells, developed by researchers in Australia, has proved surprisingly effective in animal tests.

The method is designed to sidestep two major drawbacks of standard chemotherapy — the treatment’s lack of specificity and the fact that cancer cells often develop resistance.

In one striking use of the method, reported online Sunday in Nature Biotechnology, mice were implanted with a human uterine tumor that was highly aggressive and resistant to many drugs. All of the treated animals were free of tumor cells after 70 days of treatment; the untreated mice were dead after a month.

The researchers, Jennifer A. MacDiarmid and Himanshu Brahmbhatt, say their company, EnGeneIC of Sydney, has achieved a similar outcome in dogs with advanced brain cancer. “We have been treating more than 20 dogs and have spectacular results,” Dr. Brahmbhatt said. “Pretty much every dog has responded and some are in remission.”

[Poll_Blind]

4. After reading the whole article- my god that is some slick science!

I hope it works.

PB

[xchrom]

5. fingers crossed. nt

[jazzjunkysue]

6. Just emailed this to my daughter: Bio tech major at Cornell

We're gonna figure out how to cure people without killing them, first.