Breakthroughs in Cancer Treatment

Science | December 29, 2010 | Share

IBM with its strong focus on IT has been recently populating the advertising space with its new campaign of designing smarter cities. This wave of new ideas roots from the ability (provided by IT) to collect, process and disseminate information in a faster and more effective manner. Higher crime rates in bigger cities are not only caused by the size, density and distribution of population. Inefficacy in tracking of criminal accidents causes delayed response time and in turn higher collateral damage, which can only be expunged as claimed by IBM with the power of IT.

A compelling parallel can be drawn with the recent advances in cancer therapy. The time that is involved in the prognosis and in then the diagnosis, determines the extent of damage caused within the body by a teething tumor. The thrust among modern scientists is to combine these two paths to shorten the response time and increase the efficacy of treatment. The breakthroughs in cancer therapeutics have come a long way in discovering drugs that specifically kill these cancer cells. The problem is that these killing machines exterminate healthy cells too, causing irreparable damage to the body!

Readers can understand it this way that cities that are smarter track and control criminal accidents (akin to a teething tumor) on a case by case basis real time; in this process they ensure only wrong doers are eliminated keeping peaceful neighbourhoods safe.

The Science Behind Cancer Therapy

A tumor inside the body is like any malfunctioning part of a machine that not only sways off from performing its dutiful functions but also interferes in the working of other parts. Biologically speaking, tumor cells are like any other normal body cells which turn cancerous due to genetic mutations. They do not form the required functions of the body, at the same time acquire nutrients from normal cells, multiplying in number and spreading through the organ. The organ which loses its workers in normal cells soon starts withering. In short a tumor is an all devouring demon, having a parasitic effect on the body.

The prognosis of each kind of cancer is typical in the sense that different organs have different signals (symptoms) of malfunctioning. After the demonic nature of cancer came to be known, scientist put in all their sweat in discovering cancer curing drugs which were like small detonators. These detonators blew off the healthy neighbourhoods of cancerous cells as well causing high collateral damage. The problem with these drugs even today is that they are highly non-discriminatory in action. Minimum selectivity and uncontrolled dosage makes them work like a squad of rogue policemen, who burn the whole building to eliminate the select houses where the criminal may be hiding!

The Solutions: Drug Delivery Vehicles

Scientists of late, have been able to make work an ingenuous strategy that effectively tackles this problem. The solution is drug delivery vehicles. These vehicles as the name suggests are made of biocompatible materials that carry drugs with them and selectively release them depending upon the extent of cancer growth. Understand the effectiveness of this strategy this way; Imagine how the police would engineer its action plan against two different scenarios of exigency; a harmless fire in your neighbourhood vis-à-vis arson by a violent mob. These drug delivery vehicles are small intelligent machines that design their plan assessing the ground situations. They release drugs in a phased manner. High concentration of drugs with direct injection causes damage to healthy cells but these vehicles keep dosage to an optimum (always maintaining a threshold). Higher selectivity towards the diseased areas prevents drugs from acting on other organs through the blood stream or the lymphatic system. After their deed is done, these carriers are easily screened and excreted from the body.
This strategy of controlled and selective drug release has been toyed with to produce many innovative designs. Now some of such carriers are loaded with specific genes that restore the genetic imbalance within the cell, doing away completely with the need to kill cancerous cells. Another of such design works in attaching these carriers specifically to targets and then calling for the natural defense systems – the antibodies, to act and eliminate. The need to load drugs itself is done away! Many of such similar designs use magnetism, temperature, body pH etc. to carry out the desired action.

The Road Ahead

This new modus operandi for drug delivery has reinvented the innovation wheel for cancer therapy. Scientists are now working to use it for regenerating cells that are killed through therapy, called tissue reengineering. Trials are still underway to improve the design and efficacy of these carriers for different types of malignant tumors. IBM is still envisioning a future with smarter cities in control of their crime rates; cancer therapy is already making progress borrowing the same idea. We are looking in the future of smarter organisms like smarter cities.

Shailendra Singh