American scientists from the National Cancer Institute have invented a way to kill cancer cells without directional light chemotherapy without damaging healthy cells. The method, called fotoimmunoterapiey already been successfully tested on zhivotnyh.Issledovateli staged experiments with mice, in which clearly demonstrated how cancer can be cured without any side effects of chemotherapy due to a specially created a molecule-killers, activated by light radiation given wavelength.
As explained by the head of the research group Frontomics Maxim Gozo, this work was based on a long line of research, during which posed the big question: what the cancer cells differ from all other, healthy cells in our body? As a result, scientists were able to establish the existence of certain proteins that cancer cells produce an explicit excess. And then, what kind of protein is produced in excess, depending on the type tumor. After that, left to come up with a mechanism that in these proteins can recognize and kill a dangerous cancerous tissue without affecting anything healthy.
According to the scientist, nature has given us such a mechanism: the human immune system is able to synthesize antibodies against foreign proteins, and then analyze and destroy something with which they are associated. However, the problem of cancer cells in that it is their own human cells and produce them our own proteins. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute used the latest advances in molecular engineering to significantly alter the mechanism by creating a streamlined its artificial counterpart.
"By the antibodies that recognize tumor proteins pereproizvodimye and contact them, were attached photosensitive molecules that are able to kill all of his inner circle, until they shine infrared light range of specially selected - describes the experiment, Mr. Goju. - This not only kills cancer cells point, but also has some nice bonuses: The selected light-sensitive molecules are fluorescent properties, and, accordingly, we can observe the whole process of accession of antibodies to tumor cells and destroy them. The second bonus is the high specificity of antibody binding, which virtually eliminates serious harm to healthy cells. Finally, work in the infrared radiation can penetrate deeply into the human body, and the location of the tumor can be non-judgmental. "
Of course, the method has its drawbacks. As a Russian biophysicist, overproduction of cancerous cells specific protein HER2, which bind to the antibody used in the study, is less than half the cases of breast cancer. Search targets in other cases remains a challenge for science to this day. Despite the fact that this method will have higher efficiency and significantly fewer side effects than chemotherapy or radiation therapy, scientists have received excellent results in mice will not soon be able to test it on humans. Small and light-sensitive complexes of specific antibodies may be toxic or found in the human body a number of alternative targets.
0 comments:
Post a Comment