I chanced upon an article by RSC Publishing on the use of fullerenes conjugated to antibodies in anticancer therapies(RSC publishing, Ashcroft et al, 2006). Fullerenes are hollow buckyballs, which can be used to carry an assortment of anticancer drugs. The investigators made the fullerene more specific to target cancer cells by conjugating it to antibodies that recognize cancer. With anti-cancer viral therapy now in vogue and nanotechnology progressing, it would even be possible to produce a fullerene conjugated with viral coat proteins for specific targeting of cancer cells.
Citation
1) Fullerene promise in anti-cancer therapy accessible at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/cb/Volume/2006/8/Fullerene_anticancer_therapy.asp
2) JM Ashcroft, DA Tsyboulski, KB Hartman, TY Zakharian, JW Marks, RB Weisman, MG Rosenblum and LJ Wilson, Chem. Commun., 2006
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3 comments:
The biggest problem with this idea is that fullerenes themselves have been shown to be massively carcinogenic by bonding themselves rather strongly to DNA bases in all the wrong places via pi-pi interactions. It would be quite a challenge to fashion a fullerene-based anti-cancer drug that didn't kill the patient at the same time.
Dear Elia:
That's the biggest paradox with regards to anti-cancer drugs. Drugs like cisplatin are known to damage the DNA. With regards to fullerene, it's more of an external delivery vehicle to carry the drugs. In fact, researchers want to tap the buckyball structure of fullerenes to carry an assortment of anti-cancer drugs. This fullerene is attached to an antibody, which can recognize the markers (antigenic peptides) of a cancer cell. The antibody-fullerene conjugate will then be transported to the cancer cell, and it's there the assortment of drugs will be released to kill the cancer cell. I don't think the researchers have the plan for the fullerene to enter the cancer cells in mind.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Dee
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