Experimental nanomedicine delivers chemo drugs directly to tumors in mice

Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center have developed a nanomedicine that increases the penetration and accumulation of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues and effectively kills cancer cells in mice. The researchers looked at a particular pathway known as stimulator of interferon genes (STING), whose activation increases the leakiness of blood vessels near the tumor. They designed nanoparticles that encapsulates both STING activators and chemotherapy drugs and evaluated the antitumor effects of the therapy in multiple kinds of tumors in mice; they found large tumor growth inhibition and high cure rates.