DailyDirt: Fighting Cancer

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The fight against cancer is a tough one, but new treatments are coming along that might put an end to more forms of it. For example, Google X (aka Google[x]) is working on a way to target cancer cells with nanoparticles and a wearable device. That sounds like pretty far out research, but there are a lot of different approaches to tackling cancer. Here are just a few promising ones.

• Genetically engineered T cells have been re-programmed to kill off other blood cells that might become cancerous. Patients with deadly leukemia have been treated with these modified T cells, and it looks like a promising treatment which could be modified to work against other cancers. [url]
• An experimental protein therapy might stop the metastasis of certain cancers and offer an alternative to chemotherapy. Modified proteins have stopped the spread of breast and ovarian cancers in lab mice, but testing has not yet been done in humans. [url]
• Some "zombie bacteria" (genetically modified anthrax) can be used as a drug delivery system for cancerous cells that are typically difficult to target. Cancer-fighting anthrax is being tested on mice, and this strategy might help expand the number of drugs available to treat recalcitrant tumors. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cancer, chemotherapy, drug delivery, genetically modified anthrax, gmo, health, leukemia, nanotech, protein therapy, tumor, zombie bacteria
Companies: google