From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 08:46:21 MDT
Robert writes:
> On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>
> > What would be neat would be if we could find some natty way of getting
> > nanoparticles containing cytotoxins directed in on monoclonal quantum
dot
> > labelled tumor sites. It would give us a nice way of doing cell specific
> > chemotherapy with less side effects.
>
> Brett, I think one of the problems here is that one may not have good,
> reliable markers for most tumors types.
Yep, that's my understanding too.
> Without them it is difficult to
> produce a reliable monoclonal. If you did have the markers radiolabeled
> monoclonals would be further along than they seem to be. There are a few
> of these that may be being worked on in the clinical setting but because
> the number of things that can go wrong to produce cancer one has a real
> problem of needing to know exactly what sub-type of cancer it is
> (that is why Gleevec tends to be so effective -- it is a very mutation
> specific type of cancer). Some sub-types, perhaps many, are unlikely
> to display a molecule on the cell surface that identifies itself as
> that sub-type. That is why there is an emphasis on angiogenesis
> inhibitors -- all sub-types are sooner or later going to need an
> expanded blood supply to grow.
So the question seems to be how do we target the cancerous cells
that are seeking to furnish themselves with a necessary blood supply
from healthy dividing cells that are doing the same thing.
I imagine we are probably building up a catalog of cancer cells in
petri dishes somewhere.
Anyone know what the technological bottleneck is on identifying
markers of tumor cells (or even cells generally)?
It would be interesting to know how this discovery process works
currently in order to consider ways in which it might be accelerated.
Can anyone suggest a good link?
Regards,
Brett
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