Saturday, August 16, 2014

Buzz Over Bee Venom in Cancer Research

CBS, 8/13/2014
Bee, snake or scorpion venom may sound more like a health nightmare than a cure, but they could in fact be used in cancer-fighting drugs, a new study suggests.
Injecting someone with pure venom could have disastrous health consequences, but researchers say they have found a way to avoid such issues. They separated the "useful" venom proteins and peptides, making them specifically target malignant cells while evading healthy ones, therefore eliminating harmful effects that the toxins would normally have on a person's health.
"We have safely used venom toxins in tiny nanometer-sized particles to treat breast cancer and melanoma cells in the laboratory," study author Dipanjan Pan of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement. "These particles, which are camouflaged from the immune system, take the toxin directly to the cancer cells, sparing normal tissue."…

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