Bacteria successful in cancer treatment( Bacteria that thrive in oxygen starv...),Health

Bacteria that thrive in oxygen starved environments have been used successfully to target cancer tumours, delivering gene therapy based anti-cancer treatments, according to scientists speaking today (Thursday 6 September 2007) at the Society for General Microbiologys 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs from 3-6 September 2007.

For about half of cancer sufferers our traditional treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy are ineffective, so alternative techniques are being developed to target their tumours.

"To target a tumour with gene therapy you need three things. You need to be able to distinguish the tumour from its surrounding healthy tissue. You need to identify a therapeutic gene which will treat the problem. And you need some way of delivering the gene to the tumour", says Dr Jan Theys of Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

"The majority of solid tumours contain regions of low oxygen or dead tissue. This environment encourages the growth of certain bacteria such as the Clostridium family, making them an ideal agent to deliver anti-cancer treatments" says Dr Theys. "We have now shown that genetically engineered clostridia can successfully treat tumours in animals".

Although some notorious clostridia are responsible for causing serious illnesses such as tetanus and botulism, most of them dont cause any diseases in people. They are all anaerobic bacteria, but most can form highly resistant spores which allow them to survive even in oxygen-rich conditions, although they cannot grow or multiply there. But once they meet favourable conditions, such as the dead areas inside tumours, the spores can germinate and the bacteria thrive, making them ideal to target cancers.

The scientists from Maastricht, collaborating with researchers at Nottingham University to speed up progress by sharing technology and knowledge, have proved that using these bacteria to target cancer tumours is ef
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