Could Research Lead to Cancer Cure-All?

April 25, 2006 -- -- Scientists are developing a "smart bomb" that can deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to tumors without damaging nearby tissues.

Although they will have to prove their efforts will not cause more harm than good before the first clinical trials can get under way, the researchers believe they will be able to deliver powerful drugs precisely to inoperable targets throughout the brain.

The first trials are at least two years or three years away, and many profound questions must be answered before they can begin, so this isn't likely to show up in clinics for a number of years, if ever.

So far, the process has been tested only in rodents, and it involves a procedure that is likely to cause much concern among regulatory officials -- injection of stem cells into the brain from a source other than the patient.

"It's a very novel, promising therapy," said the lead researcher, Karen Aboody of the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., one of the leading cancer research and treatment facilities in the world.

Aboody, who began her work during a 12-year stint at Harvard University, believes she and her six-person team have found a way to precisely target even tiny tumors scattered throughout the brain without the devastating side effects of chemotherapy, which normally kills healthy cells along with cancerous cells.

They also have figured out how to get over a very difficult hurdle. If delivered to a brain tumor, chemotherapy drugs can work wonders, but they are blocked from entering the brain by one of the brain's defense mechanisms, called the blood-brain barrier.

The researchers have gotten past the barrier by developing a way to turn a benign drug into a chemotherapeutic agent after it gets to the tumor.

"We're taking advantage of a natural property," Aboody said.