Express delivery for cancer drugs
A new drug-delivery method has dramatically reduced tumors in experiments conducted with mice.
Bert Vogelstein and his colleagues at the Johns Hopkins cancer center in Baltimore injected mice with microscopic containers, called liposomes, loaded with the anticancer drug doxorubicin. The blood vessels in and around tumors tend to have larger-than-normal pores, so the liposomes pass into and accumulate in cancerous tissues more readily than they do in healthy ones. The liposomes eventually rupture, releasing the drug.