New Drug Combo Targets Multiple Cancers

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Kyushu University Medical School say a novel combination of a specific sugar molecule with a pair of cell-killing drugs prompts a wide variety of cancer cell types to kill themselves, a process called apoptosis or programmed cell death.

The findings are reported online in the journal Cancer Research.

“The goal of targeted therapy is to stop the growth of cancerous cells while doing little or no harm to healthy tissue,” said Guy Perkins, PhD, associate project scientist at the Center for Research in Biological Systems at UC San Diego. “Cancer researchers are always looking for new therapies to target a variety of cancers and kill tumor cells in various stages of development.”

Read more at http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2011/Pages/11-16-cancer-drug-combo.aspx

Source: UCSD Health System