Nanotech Therapy Delivers Suicide Gene To Ovarian Cancer Cells
Posted on: Friday, 31 July 2009, 05:36 CDT
A new study finds that tiny synthetic nanoparticles carrying a payload of toxin are as effective as chemotherapy in killing ovarian cancer cells in mice, and without the adverse side effects.
The treatment, which involves the use of nanotechnology to deliver genetic material into cells, could be ready for human clinical trials in as little as one year, the researchers said.
"This report is definitely a reason to hope. We now have a potential new therapy for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer that has promise for targeting tumor cells and leaving healthy cells healthy," said lead researcher Janet Sawicki, Ph.D., a professor at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research.
Ovarian cancer kills roughly 15,000 women per year in the United States alone.
"What we did was deliver DNA that basically tells cells to die. But it is only turned on in ovarian cells," said Dan Anderson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who worked on the study.
Dr. Edward Sausville, associate director for clinical research at the Greenebaum Cancer Center at the University of Maryland, said the report illustrates significant progress in targeted therapy.
"In oncology we have been studying ways to kill tumors for a long time, but much of this has run up against the real estate principle of location, location, location," he said.
"In other words, an effective therapy is not effective if it cannot get to the target."
"A real plus of a cancer therapy like this is not just the functionality of the nanoparticle construct molecule, but the ability to deliver the toxin to the tumor cells," said Sausville.
The research underscores the promise of nanotechnology, the design and manipulation of microscopic synthetic particles, as a non-viral way of getting DNA into cells.
"People have had interesting success with viruses, but viruses have been fraught with certain safety problems," said Anderson during an interview with Reuters.
The researchers created an "artificial virus", a biodegradable polymer that can penetrate the cell and be absorbed by the body, similar to how biodegradable sutures work.
"We think that has got a variety of advantages -- in particular, safety," said Anderson, who collaborated with researchers at the Lankenau Institute in Pennsylvania.
"In this case, we show they have potential as therapeutics for ovarian cancer."
The team tested different compounds until they identified a biodegradable polymer that would be a suitable delivery vehicle. To create the nanoparticle, the polymers were mixed with a gene that produces a modified form of the diphtheria toxin that is only harmful to ovarian cancer cells.
"These particles are designed to be eaten by cells and DNA can get released into the nucleus, which is where it needs to be to work," Anderson explained.
The researchers then injected the treatment into the abdominal cavity of animals with ovarian cancer, and found it worked as well or better than the standard chemotherapy drug combination of cisplatin and paclitaxel, which can cause DNA damage and a number of adverse side effects.
"We've found these things are at least as efficacious, but are safer," Anderson added.
The team will now conduct additional tests and are working to streamline the manufacturing processes. They are also seeking the right partner to begin studying the treatment in humans.
The study is just one demonstration of the potential uses for nanoparticles in non-viral gene therapy, Anderson said. The team also plans to study nanoparticle-delivered toxin genes in cancers of the liver, lung and brain. The lab has also partnered with biotech firm Alnylam Pharmaceuticals to study the use of nanoparticles to transport treatments in a promising new field of genetic therapy called RNA interference, which can shut down or mute the activity of genes.
Anderson said researchers at MIT are working on nanoparticles as a safer alternative to viruses in creating powerful new embryonic-like cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.
The research was published in the journal Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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On the Net:
- Lankenau Institute for Medical Research
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center
- Cancer Research
- Image Courtesy Wikipedia
Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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