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CANCER DRUG CELLS TARGETED THERAPY PHARMACEUTICALS SCIENCE BIOLOGY
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A Purdue University researcher has explained for the first time the details of how drugs are released within a cancer cell, improving the ability to deliver drugs to a ecific target without affecting surrounding cells. The understanding of how to deliver and unload a cancer drug can be extrapolated to all sorts of other diseased cells.
Newswise — A Purdue University researcher has explained for the first time the details of how drugs are released within a cancer cell, improving the ability to deliver drugs to a ecific target without affecting surrounding cells.
\"As a general strategy, the indiscriminate delivery of drugs into every cell of the body for the treatment of a few ecific pathologic cells, such as cancer cells, is a thing of the past,\" said Philip Low, the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Profe or of Chemistry. \"Most new drugs under development will be targeted directly to the pathologic, disease-causing cells, and we have shed light on the details of one mechanism by which this is achieved.\"
An understanding of the cellular proce that leads to the release of targeted drugs is a major advancement for the field, he said.
\"This will help others interested in targeted drug therapy,\" said Low, who also is founder and chief science officer of Endocyte Inc., a Purdue Research Park-based company. \"The knowledge a lies not only to the treatment of cancer. The understanding of how to deliver and unload a cancer drug can be extrapolated to all sorts of other diseased cells. The uptake pathways are similar in cells involved in arthritis, multiple sclerosis, oriasis and Crohn\'s disease.\"
Interest in how drugs are released after they enter their targeted cell led Low and his team to develop a color-coded method to visualize the cellular mechanisms. Jun Yang, a postdoctoral research a ociate in Low\'s research group, together with Ji-Xin Cheng, an a istant profe or in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his graduate student Hongtao Cheng, developed this method using a technique called fluorescence resonance energy tra fer imaging.
\"The drug tur from red to green when it is released i ide the cell, clearly illuminating the proce ,\" Yang said. \"This is the first optical method to be developed to monitor this release. The main promise of this method is that it does not damage the cells being studied. Therefore, we are able to o erve the proce under true physiological conditio and watch it right as it is ha ening.\"
This research, funded by Endocyte, will be detailed in a paper in Tuesday\'s (Sept. 12) i ue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is currently available online.
In targeted drug therapy, drugs are linked to molecules that are used