A University of Massachusetts Amherst-Ernest Pharmaceuticals team has developed a non-toxic bacterial therapy to deliver cancer-fighting drugs directly into tumors:
The team has been finetuning the development of non-toxic, genetically engineered strains of Salmonella to target tumors and then control the release of cancer-fighting drugs inside cancer cells. In addition to sparing healthy tissue from damage, this cancer treatment platform is able to deliver orders of magnitude more therapy than the administered dose because the simple-to-manufacture bacteria grow exponentially in tumors.
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Early on in the research, the scientists discovered that it was the bacterial flagella – part of the cell that aids in movement – that enables the bacteria to invade cancer cells. So they engineered a genetic circuit in the bacteria that turns on the production of flagella with a simple, over-the-counter dose of aspirin. Without the turn-on switch provided by salicylic acid, the active metabolic product in the blood after a person takes an aspirin, the bacteria remain dormant in the tumor.
“One core part of this technology is the controlled activation of flagella,” Raman explains. “And the other core part is once the bacteria go inside cancer cells, we engineered them with a suicide circuit. So they rupture on their own and deliver the therapy inside the cancer cell.”
In pre-clinical research with mouse models, the bacteria is injected intravenously. “It goes everywhere, but then the immune system rapidly clears the attenuated bacteria from healthy organ tissue within two days. The bacteria continue to grow exponentially only within tumors during that time. On the third day, we give an over-the-counter dose of aspirin to trigger the bacteria to invade the cancer cells and then deliver the therapy,” Raman says.
The article contradicts itself.
“It goes everywhere, but then the immune system rapidly clears the attenuated bacteria from healthy organ tissue within two days.”
Okay, how does the immune system know to not attack the bacteria growing within the tumor, which the immune system already identifies as healthy organs?
“The bacteria continue to grow exponentially only within tumors during that time.”
Okay, the bacteria are inside the tumor cells, growing like crazy.
“On the third day, we give an over-the-counter dose of aspirin to trigger the bacteria to invade the cancer cells and then deliver the therapy,”
But the bacteria were supposedly already out of the blood stream, inside the cancer cells.
The blood stream doesn’t know about organs. The immune system doesn’t know all that much about organs. It just knows what is native, and what is foreign. Tumors don’t have a magical, secondary blood system of their own.