Although bees, scorpions and snakes are poisonous to humans, the very venom that makes them dangerous could help scientists create a new cancer treatment free of side effects, when combined with nanoparticles.
The results of a new study about using venom as a cancer treatment, led by Dipanjan Pan, Ph.D. will be announced this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The idea is to deliver these venoms directly to cancer cells while bypassing healthy cells and preventing any poisonous side effects. That's where nanoparticles come in.
"These particles, which are camouflaged from the immune system, take the toxin directly to the cancer cells, sparing normal tissue," says Pan.
Most cancer treatments involve a combination of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery that leave behind serious side effects. Not only do patients receiving these treatments often suffer from hair loss, constant nausea, extreme anemia and memory changes, but the treatments themselves are also painful and are never guaranteed to wipe cancer out completely.
This isn't the first time that medicine has used animal venom. In 1998, Merck & Co. introduced a drug called Aggrastat based on the proteins found in snake venom. This new medicine helps prevent heart attacks in certain people.
New findings show that venom may also help stop cancer. Venom from poisonous animals contains proteins that attach to cancer cells. That process may block those cells from multiplying and spreading. Unfortunately, doctors can't just inject poison into humans. But Pan's research indicates that using nanoparticles to deliver those venoms directly into cancer is a viable option.
In the lab, the team focused on bee venom. Previous research showed that this venom prevents cancer cells from multiplying. However, bees are tiny and don't make a lot of venom, so instead, scientists made a synthetic version of it.
Using a computer model, researchers injected this synthetic bee venom into individual nanoparticles, packed in tightly so that the venom wouldn't leak out. The results show that the nanoparticles go straight to a tumor, attach to its cells and prevent it from growing.
"That's what we are interested in -- those are the cells responsible for metastasizing and also responsible for having the cancer cells grow back," Pan says. "If we can target better using this technique, we potentially have a better cancer treatment."
Pan pointed out that both snake and scorpion venom should have the same effect on cancerous cells when synthesized in the lab. He hopes to begin testing on animals soon, with human trials following after that.
