Radioactive Microbes Nuke Tumor Cells

摘要

Pancreatic cancer is grimly resistant to treatment, mainly because of the disease's ability to metastasize; only about 4% of patients survive for 5 years. But by delivering radiation directly to the cancer cells via genetically modified bacteria, researchers have hit upon a novel way to halt the disease's spread, they report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rod-shaped bacterium Listeria mono-cytogenes burrows into cells, causing severe illness such as meningitis. Because it can penetrate immune cells, some researchers use weakened Listeria with bits of tumor DNA attached to teach the body's immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells. In 2009, immunobiologist Claudia Gravekamp, now of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, found that Listeria not only spurred the immune system to attack the cancer cells, but also killed them directly.