{"id":4352,"date":"2022-06-21T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=4352"},"modified":"2022-06-09T00:57:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T00:57:58","slug":"masked-cancer-drug-stealthily-trains-immune-system-to-kill-tumors-while-sparing-healthy-tissues-reducing-treatment-side-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/masked-cancer-drug-stealthily-trains-immune-system-to-kill-tumors-while-sparing-healthy-tissues-reducing-treatment-side-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Masked\u2019 cancer drug stealthily trains immune system to kill tumors while sparing healthy tissues, reducing treatment side effects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \n
\n Dendritic cells (green) produce cytokines like IL-12, which can train T cells (pink) to attack tumors.\n Victor Segura Ibarra and Rita Serda\/National Cancer Institute via Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nAslan Mansurov<\/a>, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Many cancer treatments are notoriously savage on the body. Drugs often attack both healthy cells and tumor cells, causing a plethora of side effects. Immunotherapies<\/a> that help the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells are no different. Though they have prolonged the lives of countless patients<\/a>, they work in only a subset of patients. One study found that fewer than 30% of breast cancer patients<\/a> respond to one of the most common forms of immunotherapy. <\/p>\n\n

But what if drugs could be engineered to attack only tumor cells and spare the rest of the body? To that end, my colleagues<\/a> and I<\/a> at the University of Chicago\u2019s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering<\/a> have designed a method<\/a> to keep one promising cancer drug from wreaking havoc by \u201cmasking\u201d it until it reaches a tumor.<\/p>\n\n

\n