Scientists Transform Deadly Plant Into Cancer Killing Smart BombInteresting member of the carrot family that might potentially be used to fight cancer. Currently the drug is in the earliest phase of FDA clinical trials and so it has a long ways to go before it becomes available to cancer patients, if it even makes it that far at all.
Thapsigargin, the active ingredient in the thapsia plant, does a fantastic job of killing tumor cells by destroying their calcium balance. But it will do that to any cell that crosses its path. So Genspera, a biotech company in San Antonio, Texas, found a way to strictly guide and control the drug through the bloodstream until it finds its target. "That's why we came up with the concept of producing a molecular grenade, so it activates only in the tumor," said Craig Dionne, GenSpera's president, CEO and director. The key to the cancer grenade's precise explosive effect is its "pin," a 5-amino-acid-long peptide that can be pulled only by an enzyme, called PSMA, found on the surface of blood vessels that feed cancer cells. Only when the peptide comes into contact with PMSA will it release the thapsigargin.
LINK:
http://gizmodo.com/5881640/scientists-transform-deadly-plant-into-cancer-killing-smart-bomb