New bacterial therapies for lung cancer are released

Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, Dec.
26 (Intern reporter Zhang Jiaxin) Synthetic biology enables bacterial engineering to safely deliver payloads to tumors for anti-cancer treatments
.
American researchers have developed a preclinical evaluation process to characterize bacterial therapies
in lung cancer models.
The new study combines bacterial therapy with current targeted therapies for lung cancer to improve the treatment without any additional toxicity
.
The findings were recently published in
the journal Scientific Reports.

The Columbia University School of Engineering research team used RNA sequencing to explore how cancer cells respond
to bacteria at the cellular and molecular level.
They hypothesized that the molecular pathways of cancer cells were helping cells become resistant to bacterial therapies
.
To test the hypothesis, the researchers blocked these pathways with current anti-cancer drugs and showed that combining the drugs with bacterial toxins was more effective at eliminating lung cancer cells
.
Using a mouse model of lung cancer as an example, they validated a combination
of bacterial therapy and AKT inhibitors.

Lung cancer is one of
the deadliest cancers in the world.
Many of the treatments currently available are ineffective
.
Bacterial therapy is a promising new strategy for treating cancer, and although it has rapidly advanced to clinical trials in the past 5 years, the most effective treatment for some types of cancer may still be in combination with other drugs
.

According to the researchers, the new study describes an exciting drug development process that uses toxins from bacteria that have never been explored before in lung cancer treatment
.
The preclinical data presented in the paper provide a strong basis for continuing research in this area, thus opening up new treatment options for patients diagnosed with lung cancer
.