Despite decades of research, cancer remains one of today’s
most pressing health concerns. Traditional treatment approaches such as
radiation therapy and chemotherapy can cause systemic toxicity and become
ineffective when resistant tumors emerge. Recently, anticancer strategies have
focused on drugs which specifically target tumor-related biological molecules.
Recognizing cancer cells and inducing apoptosis is a promising approach to tumor
therapy.
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State
University have developed a selection method for ligands to tumor cell-specific
markers and death receptors on the tumor cell. The two ligands are screened from
an aptamer library for high affinity and specificity to their targets.
Multimeric structures of both aptamers are then synthesized and assembled to
coordinate presentation to the cell and induce cell death.
Potential Applications
- Cancer diagnostic
- Anticancer therapeutic
Benefits and Advantages
- Lower systemic toxicity due to targeted delivery
- Assembly provides spatial organization of binding
aptamers and increased avidity to target
- Scalable feature of the DNA-nanostructure platform makes
it possible to incorporate additional biomolecules enhance tumor-targeted
killing
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For more information about the inventor(s) and their
research, please see
Dr. Yan's
departmental webpage
Dr. Yan's departmental
webpage
Dr.
Chang's directory webpage
Dr.
Chang's departmental webpage
