Read more: Irish women at higher risk from breast cancer
A scientist in Belfast has created a way to cause breast cancer cells to destruct, leaving non-cancerous cells healthy.
The delivery system is a gene that produces poisonous nitric oxide long known to have a powerful anti-cancer action.
Dr. Helen McCarthy of the school of pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast, said nitric oxide had “ shown huge anti-tumor effects but we hadn’t been able to get a targeting system,” she told "The Irish Times".
She has now managed to find a way to get the nitric oxide gene into the cancerous breast cells by means of a “designer biomimetic vector” that kills breast cancer cells but leaves normal tissues alone.
McCarthy’s work has just been published in the “International Journal of Pharmaceutics.”
Her method is gene therapy which manages to get the DNA into the cancerous cell. “In order to make gene therapy work you need to get the DNA into the cell,” McCarthy said.
The carrier does this by producing nitric oxide after it enters the cell The technique works very well in cell cultures in the lab she said and could be very successful against secondary cancers.
McCarthy says she wants to develop it as a dry powder that can be directly injected into the patient. “The idea is this will be delivered systemically around the body and be delivered to the other tumors,” she said.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.eddies1st | Mar 27, 2011, 01:21 PM EDT
This is very good news. Maybe we finally have a cure.
lanamoon | Mar 23, 2011, 05:45 PM EDT
I think this is great news for breast cancer victims. Hope the USA will listen and follow suit.
jamieLM | Mar 02, 2011, 10:32 AM EST
RMGanley - you are so wrong. What a ridiculous comment. There's more than enough horrific diseases to keep drs. busy for decades and beyond.
jamieLM | Mar 02, 2011, 06:48 AM EST
This information wont get to the US because it will put a lot of Doctors out of business.
Gearoid4 | Mar 01, 2011, 07:41 PM EST
It is great to hear such great news on the medical field and especially in relation to such a terrible cancer. The breakthrough discovery will allow medical scientists to develop drugs to nuke the carcinogenic cells and leave the remaining healthy cells intact. Hopefully this technology can be extended to a very broad range of cancers. It is very heartening to see that the gene therapy was developed by home-grown Irish scientists in one of Ireland's premier universities, Queens in Belfast.
mprescia | Mar 01, 2011, 01:27 PM EST
This is so promising and I hope woman with a need can get this done as a last chance if needed. But I am curious; will the Nitric Oxide creation, build up and possible systemic effects cause any issues? I would assume it is minimal but?
mauripala80 | Mar 01, 2011, 11:08 AM EST
I read in Findrxonline that if these treatments work until it could save people who today in day have no chance of cure for his cancer and taking medications such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.
dunning | Mar 01, 2011, 10:48 AM EST
Very interesting!!!!!!
Barbaracvm | Mar 01, 2011, 10:16 AM EST
Hopefully this can be used with other cancers.
Searlit | Mar 01, 2011, 09:25 AM EST
Fantastic news! This is great science!