22 April 2016

Stem cell Trojan horse fights cancer

Chemotherapy is great at killing cancer cells, but unfortunately, it’s also great at killing healthy cells too. To combat this issue, scientists are developing new delivery methods that can bring high doses of chemotherapy drugs to the cancer tumors and minimize exposure of healthy tissues. In a new approach, stem cells could function as a Trojan horse to sneak the active drugs into the tumors.

A study published this week in Biomaterials, describes a new drug delivery method that has the potential to be an effective treatment for prostate cancer. Researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Johns Hopkins University developed a drug delivery platform using mesenchymal stem cells. They packaged a non-active, prodrug version of a potent prostate cancer chemotherapy drug into microparticles that they loaded into MSCs. When the MSCs and prostate cancer cells were cultured together in a dish, the MSCs released their prodrug cargo, which was then internalized by the prostate cancer cells. The prodrug was then metabolized into its active, cancer-killing form and was very effective at killing the cancer cells.

In a news release picked up by Science Daily, one of the lead scientists on the study, Dr. Oren Levy, further explained the stem cell Trojan horse concept:

Mesenchymal stem cells represent a potential vehicle that can be engineered to seek out tumors. Loading those cells with a potent chemotherapeutic drug is a promising cell-based Trojan horse approach to deliver drugs to sites of cancer.

- Oren Levy

If all goes well, the teams plan to develop different versions of their stem cell-based drug delivery method that target different cancers and other diseases.

Published by CIRM – The Stem Cellar

Stem cell Trojan horse fights cancer

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