Science Saturday: Using biological particles from milk to target liver cancer
Among cancers, liver tumors have been particularly hard for doctors to treat. The cancer cells tend to be hardy from the beginning and even undergo changes that make them more resistant to chemotherapies. What’s clear is that an effective treatment needs to reach the cancer cells, and not affect or damage the normal liver.
The trick, however, is getting drugs to the tumor. Researchers have been pinning hopes on getting drugs to cancer sites using the body’s own messaging system—extracellular vesicles, or EVs—tiny pouches released by cells that typically carry molecular messages from one cell to another.
In his lab, Tushar Patel, M.B., Ch.B., dean for research at Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus, investigates using these EVs as a way to deliver drugs and treatments into cancer cells. “EVs are released by many types of cells, and can even be found in most if not all bodily fluids,” he explains. “But in order to use them for cancer treatment, large quantities of EVs need to be available.” Read the rest of the article on Advancing the Science.
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