Scientists develop new therapies to target healthy cells while protecting healthy cells
Release date: 2017-08-29
Cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, has helped many people with this disease lead a healthy life. However, chemotherapy causes harm to the body. During treatment, chemotherapy attacks all cells of the body, not just cancer cells. As a result, healthy cells are destroyed, leading to significant side effects in many patients during and after treatment.
And because the current treatment does not target cancer cells, only 0.01% of the chemotherapy drugs actually reach the tumor and its diseased cells.
Sofie Snipstad, a graduate of the Department of Physics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: "I am trying to figure out how we can provide more chemotherapy drugs to tumors than to healthy cells." Last year, she won the Norwegian Science Communication Competition and received her Ph.D., called the Researcher Grand Prix. When she received her successful speech about her research in the finals of the competition, she was testing a new cancer treatment.
Now, her research shows that this method can cure cancer in mice.
Her research "Ultrasonics to improve the delivery and therapeutic effects of nanoparticle-stabilized microvesicles in breast cancer xenografts" has just been published in the academic journal "Ultrasound Medicine and Biology."
Snipstad's method uses chemotherapy to target cancerous tumors so that more drugs can reach cancer cells while protecting healthy cells. The experiment was performed in mice with invasive breast cancer type (triple negative).
The researchers performed a number of laboratory tests prior to testing with mice, the first actual test using the chemotherapy protocol. In addition to causing the tumor to disappear during treatment, the cancer has not relapsed in the test animals.
Snipstad said: "This is an exciting technology that has shown very promising results. Our first result in the mouse test was very good, and from the outset it was determined that such a good job was very There is hope."
Chemical drugs are not directly injected into the blood and are randomly delivered to pathological and healthy cells, but are incorporated into nanoparticles. When nanoparticles containing cancer drugs are injected into the blood, the nanoparticles are large enough to remain in the blood vessels in most types of healthy tissue. This prevents chemotherapy from harming healthy cells.
However, blood vessels in tumors have porous walls, allowing nanoparticles containing chemotherapeutic drugs to enter cancer cells.
“My research shows that this approach allows us to provide hundreds of times more chemotherapy to chemotherapy patients alone, which is good,†Snipstad said.
However, nanoparticles can only reach cells that are closest to the blood vessels carrying the drug carrier particles, she said. This means that cancer cells that are away from the blood vessels that provide the tumor cannot obtain chemotherapy drugs.
“To be effective, it has to reach all parts of the tumor, so our nanoparticles still need help to provide the drug,†she said.
The nanoparticles used by Snipstad and her research team were developed at SINTEF in Trondheim. Particles are unusual because they can form small bubbles. The nanoparticles are on the surface of the bubble.
These bubbles are an important part of cancer treatment. Another important part is the use of ultrasound, which is the research field of Snipstad.
Air bubbles containing nanoparticles loaded with chemical drugs are injected into the blood. Ultrasound is then applied to the tumor. The ultrasonic waves vibrate the bubbles and eventually burst, causing the nanoparticles to be released. Vibration can also massage blood vessels and tissues to make them more holes. This helps to further advance the nanoparticles into cancerous tumors, rather than just reaching the cancer cells closest to the blood vessels.
"Using ultrasound to transport chemically loaded nanoparticles into tumors, our studies in mice have shown that we can provide about 250 times more drugs to tumors than if the chemotherapy drugs were injected separately into the bloodstream.
The mice were divided into three groups:
Group 1 was not treated and the tumor continued to grow.
Group 2 received treatment with drug-loaded nanoparticles. Tumor growth stagnated, but the tumor did not disappear.
Group 3 received treatment with drug-loaded nanoparticles, air bubbles and ultrasound. In this group, the tumor shrinks until it disappears. One hundred days after treatment, the mice still had no cancer.
Snipstad said: "In order to make the treatment effective, we have to deceive cancer cells to absorb nanoparticles and achieve chemotherapy.
To study this process, she has cultivated cancer cells and examined them under a microscope. Here, she has seen nanoparticles disguised as chemotherapeutic drugs, allowing cancer cells to take over them. However, for therapeutic work, nanoparticles must release cancer drugs at the time and place they need.
“We can do this by changing the chemical composition of the nanoparticles so that we can tailor the properties, including determining the rate at which the nanoparticles decompose. After the cells absorb the nanoparticles, the nanoparticles dissolve and release the cancer drugs inside the cells, causing the cancer cells to stop. Splitting will eventually shrink and die.
Catharina Davies is responsible for the research team at Snipstad. Her group mainly uses nanoparticles. The NTNU Group works closely with SINTEF, Europe's largest independent research institute, and St. Olaf Hospital in Trondheim. NTNU conducts animal experiments and studies cancer cells. SINTEF has developed a bubble containing nanoparticles to provide a research platform. St. Olafs’ cancer clinics and ultrasound groups have clinical skills.
“One of the things I like about this project is that it involves many different backgrounds. Trondheim has a very good interdisciplinary environment and this project requires progress in all of our different disciplines,†Snipstad said.
Although the results of the study are very promising, it is still a while to apply the method to humans.
Snipstad said: "It may take 10-20 years for the treatment to start after the time discovered by the laboratory." "We have been working for this for six years, so we still have a lot to learn, we need more To understand the mechanisms behind success, we must do more work with a microscope to understand what is happening within the organization."
Snipstad said that there are also researchers who are excited to test other types of cancer because each type of cancer is different.
This combination of bubbles, nanoparticles and ultrasound also opens the door to the possibility of treating brain diseases. The brain is protected by a special blood-brain barrier that makes it difficult to deliver the drug to the brain for treatment. This disorder only allows the brain to pass through the barrier substance, which means that there are no treatments for many brain diseases.
"But there is hope that by using ultrasound and our foam, we have managed to provide nanoparticles and drugs to the brain, which is promising for the treatment of cancer and other diseases in the brain," Snipstad said.
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