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."…
No comments:
Post a Comment