Russian authorities decided to fund production of several anti-cancer nano-agents with precise delivery of active component to a malignant growth. The results of this programme would be effective and affordable anticancer treatment with precise delivery in the form of liposomes, immunoliposomes and monoclonal antibodies.

Drug delivery is a process or technique for making a treating agent achieve a therapeutic goal. The most advanced technique for delivering drugs is targeted or precise delivery, when treating agent affects only ailing organ or tissue and is not active in healthy parts of an organism, for instance, killing only cancer cells and having no effect on healthy cells.

Liposomal treating agents are vesicles about 100 nanometers in diameter, consisting from one or more layers of phospholipids, which contain therapy principle (main treating agent) and aqueous phase. Liposomes are known as passive precise delivery systems, since they move from blood stream to tissues in places with enhanced vascular permeability, in other words, where malignant cells have appeared and keep growing, since tumour cells wall are weaker than walls of ordinary cells. Liposomes are made of the same material as cell membrane and they can carry both hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules.

As for immunoliposomes, they combine antibody-mediated tumour recognition with liposomal delivery (passive type of precise delivery) and, when designed for target cell internalization, provide intracellular drug release. These structures carry immobilized antibodies on their surface, which can recognize tumour-specific markers, also known as tumour-associated antigens.

 

 

One more type of treating nano-agents is characterized by active precise delivery – these agents are called monoclonal antibodies (monospecific antibodies that are the same because they are made by one type of immune cell which are all clones of a unique parent cell), which are known to bind only to cancer-cell specific antigens and initiate reaction of immune system, which kills cancer cell. These antibodies are produced and expressed in plant cells, and they usually carry substances, lethal for cancer cells.

Launch of production of liposomes on the basis of doxorubicin, lyzomustine, cyphelin, aranoze and bacteriochlorin, as well as immunoliposomes and monoclonal antibodies is scheduled for 2013-2014. These treating agents would be developed in the Russian Oncology Science Centre of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, the only medical institution of our country, which performs full development cycle from creating new drugs to putting them into medical practice.

Production of effective anti-cancer drugs in our country will lead to decrease of deaths, caused by cancer, in all age groups, as well as to improvement of living standards of those, suffering from cancer. Low prices will make these drugs more affordable for the Russian population, and also allow the Russian government to buy more treating agents for federal health programmes within the same budget.

Source: Science & Technologies

Kizilova Anna