We all enjoy a hint of a ninja assassin concept every now and then don’t we?
Well here is a twist, a cell that is a ninja! Yes, it secretly, in disguise roams the tunnel ways of the brain, searching for cancer cells, eliminates them with a slick move and disappears instantly like it was never present at the scene. Sounds straight out of a mystery novel does it not?
Now, scientists armed with this crazy idea intend to battle aggressive cancers.
Brain cancers or commonly addressed to as Brain Tumours, are abnormal growths of cells in the organ. Especially if the tumours are malignant, they can spread to various parts of the body, in addition to aggressively overpowering healthy cells by taking their space, blood, and nutrients. They spread to roots and tendrils through the whole organ, making these cells or tumours practically impossible get rid of surgically.
Cancers exude a chemical signal that attracts stem cells which detect tumors as a wound that needs healing and migrate to help fix the damage. The scientists plan on encashing on this very process to formulate a secret weapon and deliver cancer-killing drugs to places where they are precisely needed.
Although this concept
has previously been tried in mice with moderate success, the scientists are now aiming to carrying them in humans by harvesting adult skin cells directly from the patient or from another patient that are capable of tumor-homing by tweaking them a little.And since this cell harvesting plan seems to be of high risk and not to mention other complexities involved, the researchers are now contemplating other easier options; one being the process of genetic reprogramming of cells. They have found that when the skin cells were treated with a cocktail of biochemical, the cells transformed directly into neural cells that were required for the process as opposed to earlier methods which involved an intermediate step of conversion to stem cells first.
This newly discovered technique when applied to mouse tumors by direct injection of reprogrammed stem cells, shrank the tumours up to 20x to 50x times in 24–28 days in comparison to untreated mice. Furthermore, the survival period of treated mice nearly doubled.
This group of scientists at the University of North Carolina is currently planning to migrate upwards with the technique by using larger animal models, hoping for equally satisfying results so that they can safely carry out human trials of the same in the near future.
