Sunday, December 30, 2007

Anthrax toxin as cancer killer?-Health/Science-The Times of India

"Researchers have developed a mutated anthrax toxin, which may have implications as an effective cancer therapy. Researchers at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology created a mutated anthrax toxin, which could kill tumour cells in mice. In the study, Stephen Leppla and colleagues showed that Anthrax toxin was fairly selective in targeting melanoma cells, even though the risk of non-cancer toxicity prevents any clinical use. This mutated toxin could only be turned on by matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), proteins that are overproduced only in cancer cells. "

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