Softer surroundings stifle some chemotherapy drugs
Cancer cells grown in stiffer gels more vulnerable to treatment, study finds
PHILADELPHIA — Keeping a stiff upper lip may help some chemotherapy drugs fight cancer. Some such drugs, including the leukemia drug Gleevec, don’t work as well as expected when blood cancer cells grow in soft surroundings, bioengineers Jae-Won Shin and David Mooney of Harvard University reported December 7 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology.
The finding was unexpected because cells grow faster in softer tissues than they do in stiffer ones. And previous experiments in laboratory dishes suggested that faster-growing cells were easier to kill.