Radioactive Microbes Nuke Tumor Cells

• By Elizabeth Norton, ScienceNOW
• 04.23.13
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Wired

Despite the advances made against many types of cancer, pancreatic cancer remains grimly resistant to treatment. Only about 4% of patients survive for 5 years, mainly because of the disease’s vicious ability to metastasize, or spread to other parts of the body. Now, a group of researchers has hit upon a novel way to halt its spread: delivering radiation directly to the cancer cells using genetically modified bacteria. In a study of mice carrying human tumors, the therapy shrank the rodent’s primary tumors while sparing healthy tissue; it also blasted cancer cells that had spread throughout the animals, reducing their number by up to 90%.

The cancer-targeting microorganism, Listeria monocytogenes, is a rod-shaped bacterium that penetrates the cells of the people and animals that it infects. Although the pathogen can cause severe illness, such as meningitis, a healthy person’s immune system can usually destroy it before any damage is done. Because of the bacterium’s ability to burrow inside key immune cells called macrophages, some researchers use weakened Listeria with bits of tumor DNA attached to teach the body’s immune system to recognize and destroy cancerous cells that might otherwise slip by unnoticed.

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