08-08-2014, 01:46 AM
(08-08-2014, 01:16 AM)chris0033547 Wrote: Thanks for the answer, Rynn. So, basically if one could distinguish between cancer cells and healthy cells, one would be able to modify this parasite in such a way that it would only attack cancerous cells? Am I correct that the modification of the parasite itself would be easier than the task to determine the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells?
No, engineering such a novel and complicated trait into an organism would be much harder (and reliably targeting cancer cells is still a holy grail of cancer research).
There have been interesting efforts to generate organisms that preferentially migrate or hunt cancer. Two examples that spring to mind are using bacteria as vectors and gene-modified white blood cells. In the former case bacteria are introduced that can thrive in tumours due to the hypoxic environment and nutrients provided by tumour-mediated necrosis. The EPR effect causes bacteria to accumulate in tumours. The second is gene modified T-cells. These are immune cells that have been engineered to be far more sensitive to cancer cell antigens, when placed back into the patient they will initiate an immune response against cancer cells.