Lung cancer is not the most common form of cancer, but it is by far among the deadliest. Despite treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, only about a quarter of all people with the disease will live more than five years after diagnosis, and lung cancer kills more than 1.8 million people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.
To improve the odds for patients with lung cancer, researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington and UT Southwestern Medical Center have pioneered a novel approach to deliver cancer-killing drugs directly into cancer cells.
“Our method uses the patient’s own cellular material as a trojan horse to transport a targeted drug payload directly to the lung cancer cells,” said Kytai T. Nguyen, lead author of a new study on the technique in the journal Bioactive Materials and the Alfred R. and Janet H. Potvin Distinguished Professor in Bioengineering at UTA.