New "Bubble" Targets Only Cancer Cells

New drug delivery technology developed by Prof. Rimona Margalit of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biochemistry allows drugs to target cancer cells specifically, leaving surrounding healthy cells intact and reducing the painful side effects of chemotherapy. The science utilizes tiny bubbles, visible only through powerful microscopes, that contain payloads of therapeutic drugs.

“This development is on the leading edge of the new frontier of drug delivery and cancer treatment,” says Prof. Margalit. “Bubble technology can also be applied to other medical conditions, including diabetes, osteoarthritis, wounds, and infectious diseases. In twenty years, it could be widespread.”

Currently, cancer drugs travel throughout the body delivering powerful medication to all the cells they encounter, both healthy and cancerous. When healthy cells are damaged by unnecessary medication, a patient can experience unpleasant side effects ranging from hair loss to nausea. More worrying are further health risks due to the damage that the medication does to the patient’s immune system.

Called “drug carriers” recent reports of Prof. Margalit’s new technology applied in both cancer and osteoarthritis therapies were published in Nature Nanotechnology and in theJournal of Controlled Release (2008). The technology allows cancer treatment medication to be placed inside tiny bubbles so small that millions fit along a single inch. The surface of the bubbles contains an agent that allows them distinguish cancer cells from healthy ones. When the bubbles “recognize” a cancer cell, they deliver the medication they’re carrying to that cell.

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