Nanoparticle drug stops cancer's spread in mice | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views
-
Lottie Peppers on 09 Feb 15When a person dies from cancer, the culprit is usually not the original tumor but rather the cancerous cells that spread throughout the body and replicate in distant organs, a process called metastasis. Researchers have long known that metastasizing cancer cells slip their bonds and avoid immune detection by altering the sugars on their surfaces. They've even come up with a would-be drug to prevent such sugar alterations. But that compound interferes with needed sugars on normal cells, too, with lethal results in animals. Now, Dutch researchers report that they've packaged the drug in nanoparticles targeted exclusively to cancer cells, and they've shown that this combination prevents cancer cells from metastasizing in mice.