The future is now! Photo: Sapphire Energy
Cancer is a terrible thing. According to the CDC, It kills somewhere around 8 million people each year, and about half of those die prematurely. Treatment is difficult–the most commonly used chemotherapy often attacks not only cancer cells, but healthy ones as well. But algae might change all that.
Algae is a bit of a wonder-plant. Like any other plant, is sucks up CO2 and produces O2. It can clean sewage, it can be used as an energy source, and since it grows so quickly, it’s proving to be an incredibly sustainable way to produce oil-based products. Hell, people are even making surfboards out of it.
Researchers have been developing something incredible. By loading up genetically engineered diatom algae with chemo drugs, they might’ve figured out a way to avoid harming healthy, normal cells while killing off the cancerous ones.
“By genetically engineering diatom algae – tiny, unicellular, photosynthesizing algae with a skeleton made of nanoporous silica, we are able to produce an antibody-binding protein on the surface of their shells,” explained Professor Nico Voelcker, Ph.D at the University of South Australia. “Anti-cancer chemotherapeutic drugs are often toxic to normal tissues. To minimize the off-target toxicity, the drugs can be hidden inside the antibody-coated nanoparticles. The antibody binds only to molecules found on cancer cells, thus delivering the toxic drug specifically to the target cells.”
The study’s results will be published in Nature Communications, and have very clear implications in the future of the fight against cancer.
“Although it is still early days,” said Voelcker, “this novel drug delivery system based on a biotechnologically tailored, renewable material holds a lot of potential for the therapy of solid tumors including currently untreatable brain tumors.”
