A molecule worth its weight in gold to fight cancer
EPFL scientists have shown that inorganic, metal-containing molecules can be used to fight cancer. The discovery has opened up a whole new area of research.
EPFL scientists have shown that inorganic, metal-containing molecules can be used to fight cancer. The discovery has opened up a whole new area of research.
Biochemistry
Oct 18, 2011
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Australian cancer researchers have developed a highly promising nanomedicine that could improve treatment for pancreatic cancer – the most deadly cancer in Australia.
Bio & Medicine
Aug 8, 2016
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Although chemotherapy can be a lifesaving treatment for patients with cancer, some of these medications can damage the heart. A team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) recently developed a nanoparticle ...
Bio & Medicine
Aug 15, 2022
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361
Nanoparticles offer a promising way to deliver cancer drugs in a targeted fashion, helping to kill tumors while sparing healthy tissue. However, most nanoparticles that have been developed so far are limited to carrying only ...
Bio & Medicine
Sep 14, 2016
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A "Trojan horse" treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer, which involves using tiny nanoparticles of gold to kill tumour cells, has been successfully tested by scientists.
Bio & Medicine
Aug 12, 2014
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Purdue University researchers have developed a technology aimed at making it easier to deliver cancer treatment to the right "address" in the body while also easing the painful side effects of chemotherapy on patients.
Bio & Medicine
Nov 15, 2018
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Standard chemotherapies may efficiently kill cancer cells, but they also pose significant risks to healthy cells, resulting in secondary illness and a diminished quality of life for patients. To prevent the previously unavoidable ...
Bio & Medicine
Jan 5, 2022
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Humans are veritable chemical factories—we manufacture thousands of substances and transport them, via our blood, throughout our bodies. Some of these substances can be used as indicators of our health status. A team of ...
Hi Tech & Innovation
Mar 19, 2013
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Plasmonic nanoparticles are extremely sensitive to light, and even the tiniest amount can cause these particles to heat up. Scientists are now trying to use plasmonic nanoparticles in cancer therapy whereby light energy is ...
Bio & Medicine
Dec 23, 2011
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Nanoparticles packed with a clinically used chemotherapy drug and coated with an oligosaccharide derived from the carapace of crustaceans might effectively target and kill cancer stem-like cells, according to a recent study ...
Bio & Medicine
Jun 30, 2015
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Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, refers to treatment of disease by chemicals that kill cells, both good and bad, but specifically those of micro-organisms or cancerous tumours. In popular usage, it refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer or the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen. In its non-oncological use, the term may also refer to antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy). In that sense, the first modern chemotherapeutic agent was Paul Ehrlich's arsphenamine, an arsenic compound discovered in 1909 and used to treat syphilis. This was later followed by sulfonamides discovered by Domagk and penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming.
Most commonly, chemotherapy acts by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of cancer cells. This means that it also harms cells that divide rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract and hair follicles; this results in the most common side effects of chemotherapy—myelosuppression (decreased production of blood cells), mucositis (inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract) and alopecia (hair loss).
Other uses of cytostatic chemotherapy agents (including the ones mentioned below) are the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and the suppression of transplant rejections (see immunosuppression and DMARDs). Newer anticancer drugs act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells; this is termed targeted therapy.
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