Targeting tumors.Targeting tumors Scientists attending the annual meeting of the AmericanAssociation for Cancer Research in Atlanta last month expressed optimism about a newly developed chemical that selectively kills tumor tumor: see neoplasm. cells. J. Martin Brown, director of the radiation biology Radiation biology The study of the action of ionizing and nonionizing radiation on biological systems. Ionizing radiation includes highly energetic electromagnetic radiation (x-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic rays) and particulate radiation (alpha particles, beta division at Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine is affiliated with Stanford University and is located at Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and Menlo Park. , reported that he and his colleagues have designed a new compound that is naturally metabolized into a toxic form in the oxygen-depleted environment characteristic of many tumors. Solid tumors are often low in oxygen, or hypoxic hypoxic a state of hypoxia. hypoxic cell sensitizers compounds that selectively sensitize hypoxic tumor cells to the effects of radiation. , because they have outgrown their own blood supply. Like other so-called bioreductive agents, the chemical, SR4233, has been shown to release DNA-damaging free radicals at tumor cells in mice, especially when administered with other drugs that make tumors even more hypoxic than usual. Brown says the new chemical is "at least an order of magnitude A change in quantity or volume as measured by the decimal point. For example, from tens to hundreds is one order of magnitude. Tens to thousands is two orders of magnitude; tens to millions is three orders of magnitude, etc. more selective for hypoxic cells than previously used compounds,' and so is less apt to harm healthy cells. |
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