US researchers have identified a compound that could drastically reduce toxic side effects associated with a widely used cancer drug. The research could improve anticancer treatment and drug tolerance among cancer patients.
Matthew Redinbo from the University of North Carolina had worked on cancer drug irinotecan, or CPT-11, for years, but when a colleague started undergoing treatment with the drug he became motivated to address the side effects. Irinotecan is mainly used against colon cancer, but the severe diarrhoea that can be a major side effect of treatment can lead to hospitalisation. The researchers screened 10,000 compounds and found four potential inhibitors of bacterial beta-glucuronidase, the enzyme thought to be responsible for reactivating irinotecan in the gut. Redinbo's collaborators from New York have also shown that mice that received regular oral dose of one of the inhibitors along with irinotecan suffered much less diarrhoea, and had healthier colon tissue, than mice that were just treated with irinotecan.
A new environmentally friendly concept in functionalising polymers allows coloured dye to be integrated directly into polymers that can be used in clothes and packaging, say UK scientists.
The dye is also incorporated and causes the polymer to be coloured. Because the dye becomes part of the polymer structure, there is no excess dye to wash away as in conventional processes, so pollution is also minimised. The team have made black, red, yellow and purple PLA fibres. Wayne Hayes, a polymer chemist at Reading University, UK believes the concept has great potential for the textile industry. McGowan suggests that functionalising the polymers to incorporate fluorescent or UV-active molecules could be useful for PLA used in packaging
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