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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Packaging a cancer drug in bubble containers derived from a patient’s own immune system [futurity.org] makes it much more effective. Doing so protects the drug paclitaxel from being destroyed by the body’s own defenses, which means the entire payload is delivered to the tumor.

“That means we can use 50 times less of the drug and still get the same results,” says Elena Batrakova, associate professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“That matters because we may eventually be able to treat patients with smaller and more accurate doses of powerful chemotherapy drugs resulting in more effective treatment with fewer and milder side effects.”

The work is based on exosomes, which are tiny spheres harvested from the white blood cells that protect the body against infection. The exosomes are made of the same material as cell membranes, and the patient’s body doesn’t recognize them as foreign, which has been one of the toughest issues to overcome in the past decade with using plastics-based nanoparticles as drug-delivery systems.

Original study [doi.org].

Original Submission