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Scientists have discovered a new treatment called the ‘Trojan horse’ therapy to fight the battle of cancer. They have been looking for such a better way of treatment rather than the traditional radiation and chemotherapy treatments, both of which damage healthy cells instead of just the cancerous ones.
A research team in Australia have developed the new ‘Trojan horse’ therapy to help combat cancer by using a bacterially-derived ‘nano cell’ to help penetrate and deactivate the cell that is cancerous before a second nano cell kills it with the chemotherapy drugs.
This new ‘Trojan horse’ therapy has the potential to target the cancer cells directly with chemotherapy, rather than the current treatment where drugs are injected into the cancer patient and end up attacking both the healthy and the cancer cells.
Dr. Jennifer MacDiarmid and Dr. Himanshu Barhmbhatt, who formed EnGenelC Pty Ltd in 2001, informed that they have achieved a 100 percent rate of survival in mice with human cancer cells by using the “Trojan horse” therapy over the past two years.
The scientists are planning to start the clinical trials on humans within the coming months. However, the human trials of the cell delivery system will start next week at The Austin located at the University of Melbourne and the Peter MacCullum Cancer Center at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
The therapy sees the mini-cells that are called EDVs (EnGenelc Delivery Vehicle), first attach and then enter the cancer cell. The first wave of these mini-cells release ribonucleic acid molecules, which are called siRNA, that are used to switch off the production of proteins that make the cancer cell resistant to the chemotherapy treatment. Then, a second wave of the EDV cells are accepted by the cancer cells and release the chemotherapy drugs, in turn, killing the cancer cell.
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