Thursday, June 29, 2017

Impeding Tumors with Modified Plant Material #Science #Medicine #Cancer

This is NOT an article about curing cancer with organic food or anything of that nature.



Nanoparticle with chemo payload

Only credit I could find was for Buffalo.edu

In the current science, they find the idea above may not be the most effective since they found the chemo payload (i.e. all the bubbles inside the sphere) and the nanoparticle (i.e. the container) work better if they're not joined and can work independently.


Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in collaboration with researchers from Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and RWTH Aachen University (Germany) have adapted virus particles -- that normally infect potatoes -- to serve as cancer drug delivery devices for mice. But in a recent article published in Nano Letters, the team showed injecting the virus particles alongside chemotherapy drugs, instead of packing the drugs inside, may provide an even more potent benefit.

Science Daily:  Injectable plant-based nanoparticles delay tumor progression

Note:  there's some sort of crazy riff in seeing the same virus which goes after potatoes apparently also goes after cancerous tumors but we won't be playing that one tonight.


The researchers discovered injecting potato virus particles into melanoma tumor sites activates an anti-tumor immune system response. And simultaneously injecting the nanoscale plant virus particles and a chemotherapy drug -- doxorubicin -- into tumor sites further helps halt tumor progression in mice. But surprisingly, when the researchers created and injected combination nanoparticles, where the chemo drug is physically attached to the virus particles, there was not a significant added benefit.

- SD

Real life is always strangest of all and here we have a tumor in human tissue which responds to a virus which infects potatoes.  The interested student is invited to pursue the full depth of it in the article since their intrigue is why should there be a difference in how the tumor reacts when the potato virus particles approach with or without a chemo payload.


There's one cautionary aspect the researchers observe in that there may not be as much real benefit as perceived from greater complexity in these types of approaches.

The results are the first to show "vaccinating" mice with potato virus nanoparticles at a cancer site can generate an anti-tumor response. But the results also suggest more complex nanoparticles may not correspond to added therapeutic benefit.

- SD


The research will continue with the general premise that reducing complexity may be more efficacious toward combating the tumor in this specific instance and possibly others.

Steinmetz and her team will next investigate mechanisms behind the potato virus particles' anti-tumor effects. She plans to test whether co-administering the nanoparticles with different chemotherapy drugs can delay, or slow the progression of other cancers. Said Steinmetz, "Dual-pronged therapeutic approaches may be our best defense against certain cancers. And, virus-based nanoparticles like the ones in our study may be used to enhance efficacy of existing medications."

- SD

The principle isn't less is more since they're ready and willing to throw everything in the basket at whacking the tumor but the part in which they're unwilling is in constructing some type of Monstro the Tumor Whacker which contains all the medical approaches in one.  It definitely looks like it's valid to say less complex is more.

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