Here is yet another approach (we started this yesterday) has proven useful to treat cancer.
Researchers, under the direction of Dr. PD Pons, at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital (the merger of Peter Bent Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston, along with Mass General) have been using what they call STING- Stimulator of Interferon Genes Activation. STING harnesses our immune system, using nanoparticle structures. These structures release the STING drugs when they hit the target cells. In mice studies, STING both eradicated live tumors and trained the immune system to recognize and attack the target cells in future encounters. (This is critical, since IV administration of STING was not found to be terrible effective- poor drug uptake and the lack of drug stability.)
Protein activation (stimulating the interferon genes) of small messenger molecules (cytosolic cyclic dinucleotides [CDN]) which attach to STING, can activate immune cells (NK cells, macrophages, and T cells). By using the nanostructure, transport to the CDN is effective, releasing the messengers and detaching only when the target cell is acquired The team also found that the spleen plays a critical role in the training of the immune cells.
The 21 person team reported these results in Nature Nanotechnology, Investigation of the enhanced antitumor potency of STING agonist after conjugation to polymer nanoparticles. (The graphical abstract is depicted above.)
