Scientists know cancers have an uncanny ability to travel through the body by slipping in and out of blood vessels to hitch a ride through the bloodstream. They do it by loosening the arterial walls and squeezing through. “Normally, our blood vessel walls are all sealed pipes,” [EnGenIC CEO Himanshu] Brahmbhatt says. “But around wherever the cancer is growing, the blood vessels are known to be very defective. They have got a lot of holes in them.”
Brahmbhatt and his collaborator Jennifer MacDiarmid devised a clever ploy. They would send a Trojan horse into malignant cells and turn cancer’s own trickery against it.
The Trojan horse, in this case, is a product of a harmless bacteria that’s been genetically engineered to have specific qualities. When this genetically engineered bacteria divides, it yields a tiny non-living cell of 400 nanometers in diameter—the right size to slip through the damaged vessels and mingle with the tumors.
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Brahmbhatt and MacDiarmid tested the nano-cell assassins in mice and then in a small human trial… When he looked at the first set of scans, Brahmbhatt recalls, “what we saw was something fantastic. With these molecules, which are inhibitors of DNA replication, we could extend their lives.” More surprising was the fact that—unlike systemic chemotherapies—there were no toxic side effects. Currently Brahmbhatt’s company, EnGeneIC, is preparing for the next phase of clinical trials.
