A New Approach to “Eradicate” Tumors in Cancer Has Been Discovered by Chinese and South Korean Scientists.
A groundbreaking cancer study has just been published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition by a team from the China University of Geosciences, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hainan University in China, and Ewha Womans University in South Korea.
A new drug causing cancer cells to “suffocate” due to calcium – (Image illustration from the Internet).
According to SciTech Daily, calcium ions play a crucial role in cellular functions but can be harmful at high levels. Therefore, the China-South Korea research team sought a way to make cancer cells “suffocate” from calcium.
They targeted two natural calcium channels in the body, which are pathways for introducing this mineral into the cell membrane and the endoplasmic reticulum.
The channel leading to the cell membrane is activated by high doses of reactive oxygen species (ROS), while the channel leading to the endoplasmic reticulum is stimulated by nitric oxide molecules.
To create a drug that could be introduced into the body, they “packaged” these stimuli into ultra-small modified porous silica particles, which are harmless to the body but can be recognized and quickly absorbed by tumor cells.
After injecting these particles into the bloodstream of laboratory mice, the drug immediately accumulated in the tumor, revealed through bio-imaging techniques.
Ultimately, they used near-infrared light to activate this special drug, causing the tumor to disappear within days!
According to the authors, this is due to the large amounts of calcium overwhelming each cancer cell, thereby rapidly destroying the entire tumor.
Following this unexpected success, scientists hope to explore additional ways to activate other calcium channels targeting various types of cancer tumors and to move forward with clinical trials (on humans) soon.
